Endeavour NCC 194: Little Princess
by LeBiff
Summary: On a space station run by the criminal Cartel, Alex Nain and her doppelganger, Kana, encounter a trio of individuals, Lance Riker, his girlfriend Miranda, and a mysterious child called Susan, who are being hunted by the Orion Syndicate
1. Prologue

**ENDEAVOUR NCC-194**

_Little Princess_

Prologue 

_August 21, 2164_

Frav, the Orion representative, awaited his next appointment from the extravagant luxury of his penthouse. He was known as one of the most powerful men in the Syndicate, a man to whom whole governments came to beg favours, and no expense was spared to maintain that image. He lived a life of decadent bliss, to which billions of others looked on, awed and envious. The most beautiful women from around the Syndicate and beyond doted over his grand, well-fed frame. His servants knew his every whim, taste, and pleasure, and catered to them religiously, knowing that the slightest displeasure in him could spell their end. A man who commanded solar systems need suffer no imperfection, no matter how miniscule.

This was the fiction, at any rate, and it was an artfully maintained one. Governments did indeed come to him, people were frightened of his power, but the reality, known to just two – perhaps three – people, was that he had no power whatsoever. He could not even attend to his toilet without authorisation.

He was a valuable puppet for the true master of the Syndicate. A person who remained comfortably anonymous.

Useful, but not indispensable, as he well knew. He was careful never to get too comfortable with his faux power, or to relax into the luxury all around him. It was all props on a stage, and he was but an actor; his 'director' could replace him in a moment if his performance was unsatisfactory.

Distantly, he heard the door open. Booted feet clicked along the stone path that wound from the door to the gazebo, taking in the delicate garden and the bubbling artificial stream that bisected the room. Although it resided on the top floor of a tower in the Orion capital city, Frav's chamber was a slice of natural beauty.

The visitor was an unremarkable man, whose features fell from mind even as one looked at him. He was neither tall or short, fat or thin, and he wore a non-descript black suit and tie, and carried a slim black briefcase. His face was round, his eyes dark, his black hair short. Nothing about him created an impression: he would be impossible to pick from a line-up.

He stopped the appropriate distance from the Orion and bowed ever so slightly. "Mr Frav."

"Mister Black. Right on time. Be seated."

Mist Black sat on the bench indicated and placed his briefcase on his lap. Without shifting his eyes from Frav in the slightest, he said in his slow, even, toneless voice, "She should go."

He referred to Tia, the naked Orion female draped around Frav's wide shoulders. She was the most beautiful woman in the quadrant, if not the cosmos; tall, sculptured, with large firm breasts and long, long, sumptuous legs, a narrow waist, and elegantly curved hips; her triangular face wearing a pout. How could any man, or woman for that matter, look at this perfect creature and not feel their mouth water?

She was unhappy to be dismissed, but unwrapped herself from Frav and started to turn away – unwatched by Mister Black. The Orion caught her slim wrist in his blubbery hand and pulled her back to him. "Anything you say to me, my employees can hear."

Mister Black's eyes still didn't move. "Very well. I have some people I want eliminated."

"Who do you think I am? A low-rent assassin?"

"I think you are a man of business who can get things done. I have a simple proposal. If you are not interested I will take my business elsewhere."

Tia's hands moved up Frav's oiled chest. He nodded. "Very well, Mister Black. I will listen."

He opened his slim briefcase and handed over two pieces of paper, upon which were photographs and brief descriptions of the targets. Frav quickly glanced at the sheets and smiled toothily at his client. "Unwanted family?"

Mister Black closed his briefcase and made no comment.

"Quite a bounty you're offering," Frav tried again.

"I want it taken care of quickly."

"I'll get this circulated."

Mister Black stood, his business concluded. With a second polite bow, he took his leave. Frav turned the pages over again, wondering what these people had done to deserve such high prices. Mister Black had come to him before with jobs to be done. They always carried large rewards, but this was something else again. This was very important to him.

He almost felt sorry for the two wretches. With such a sum on their pretty heads, they wouldn't last long.

He passed the sheets to Tia.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter One September 7, 2164 

Alex Nain was cheating at poker.

There were six of them in the game: herself, Captain William Drake, Admiral Janus McCaffrey, Captain Nwabudike Lal, Captain Arthur Lowe, and Commander Tholiar, in one of the Andorian woman's rare social appearances. They had been playing for hours, and by now Lowe was broke, McCaffrey was hanging on by the change in his pockets, Drake and Lal had both folded, and Tholiar was regretting having agreed to take part. She didn't fully grasp the game, but she knew that she was doing badly at it.

Alex, the _Starship Endeavour_'s jovial red-eyed helmsman, was making a killing. Yes, she wasn't playing exactly honourably, but there were two people at the table who annoyed the hell out of her, and she would take any opportunity to hurl a little aggravation their way. Her friends would get their money back in the end.

She held her cards close to her face, so that just her unnatural eyes peeked over the top of them, and watched the admiral intently.

"_He's got three twos,"_ said the seventh person in the room – the admiral's cabin aboard Starbase Two. She popped her head over McCaffrey's shoulder, grinned, and continued, _"An awe-inspiring hand."_

Alex grinned, her expression hidden behind her cards – which were a fair sight stronger than three of a kind. She adored games like this, where her other side could give her an advantage. There were so many ways to cheat at card games, but there were always ways to catch such cheats. Having someone whom only you can see and hear feed you what's in your opponent's hand…there was no way to catch that!

Kana objected to being an accessory to cheating at cards. Not because she had any moral objection – Kana and morality weren't close associates – but because she found it demeaning. She had incredible abilities, and what did her host have her do? Spy on playing cards!

Alex flicked a handful of chips from her plentiful pile into the centre of the table. The admiral huffed and tossed what little cash remained to him in. They compared hands; Alex laughed, and left the admiral poor.

He thumped his fist against the felt tabletop. "You're cheating somehow, I know it!"

Alex touched a hand to her chest. "Me?"

"No one can play so perfectly by luck!" He accused, and Lowe nodded alone with him. They were of one mind, as they so often were. Gutless little suck up.

Nwabudike Lal laughed his warm, throaty, highly amused laugh. "You don't know Alex, do you, sir?"

"I think I know her well enough," said McCaffrey, abruptly standing. "Thank you, Gentlemen, but it's getting late."

The three _Endeavour_ crewmen, Nwabudike, and the second Nain left together, the physical people smiling and laughing, Kana still peeved. Nwabudike, a handsome black man in his mid-thirties, round-faced and cheerful, put his arm around Alex's shoulder and pulled her to him affectionately. "Gotta know, Red; how did you play so good back there? You're lucky, but no way are you that lucky!"

"My little secret."

"I knew it!" Laughed Drake. "You were cheating."

"Maybe."

"Come on, out with it. How?"

"Ask me no questions and I'll you no lies."

Drake smiled fondly but doubtfully. "That so?"

Alex's smile was impish. She knew that her friend honestly didn't mind, that much, that she kept secrets from him – a lot of secrets. It was just one of the many things that she liked about him. People she had known in the past had been full of questions – why did she have red eyes? were they contact lenses? why did she talk to herself? who was Kana? – and they had never liked the answers, even when she had abandoned the truth in favour of more plausible falsehoods. Drake just considered her British and consequently a bit odd anyway.

"Here," she handed over a chunk of her ill-gotten winnings to the two captains. "Have fun. I'll see you guys tomorrow."

"Where are you going?" Drake was disappointed. In the three days since the _Endeavour_ had put into port he had seen almost nothing of his best friend. Whenever he had gone looking for her, she was nowhere to be found. He finally caught up with her, and she ran off again.

She was a little evasive. "Like the admiral said, it's a little late."

Drake gave her his patented 'is that the best you can do?' look.

"I was up late yesterday, and I've got plans for tomorrow. Sorry guys. Night."

She made a quick exit. Drake watched her go and sighed. Nwabudike watched Drake.

"You two really confuse me sometimes."

"What do you mean?"

"You keep saying there's nothing going on with you two, and then you act like this."

"Like what?" The captain said innocently.

"All dopey-eyed and loved sick."

"Keep telling you, I'm not interested in Alex."

Nwabudike smiled, bright white teeth flashing against his chocolaty skin. "Whatever, Will."

"Really."

"Well. I'm interested in her." He earned himself a sharp look for that comment. Was that jealousy? He laughed. "Not like that, Will. Although she's a fine woman. I meant my XO is retiring in a couple of months and I want Alex to fill his shoes."

"Have you told her?"

Nwabudike nodded. "She hasn't mentioned it to you?"

Drake shook his head. "I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you, pal."

"Yeah, I sort of guessed she might be like that. It's a shame. She's got a lot of potential; you know that, Will. She could go far, if she just made a smart decision every once in a while."

"I don't think she cares about her career."

"Nope. She wants to be with her friend. It's touching, really." He sighed, clearly displeased. "Never mind. I've got other candidates in mind, but I'd like it to be Alex."

The captain knew why. Alex and Nwabudike were very similar people – both adventurous daredevils with little time for planning or scientific duty. Lal was more popular with the admiral than he was. On the _Intrepid_ Alex would see the kind of action she craved.

"I'll talk to her for you."

"Appreciate that, Will. I'm not expecting miracles, though."

Yeah. Convincing Alex to make a sensible career move? That would take a miracle.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"_Are you still sulking?"_

"_I don't sulk."_

"_Yeah? You could pout for Earth."_

There were two kinds of fire in Kana's eyes now – the unnatural power that always filled them, and irritation. _"I'm not from Earth."_

Alex Nain smiled at her very best friend, displaying a different kind of warmth. _"Tomorrow is your day, like I promised. And, as a bit of a treat, because you gave such good information tonight…"_ She produced from the inner lining of her cloak a small bar, wrapped in silver foil and paper, a grinning child on the wrapper.

Kana squeaked like a little girl, her bad mood instantly gone. There were a lot of things that could put a grin on her face, only a few didn't involve drowning an enemy in their own blood, and of those the promise of white chocolate was the easiest to arrange. She had brought the bar earlier in the evening in preparation for this event. Good Belgian chocolate cost a bit this far from Earth, but it was worth it for the look on Kana's face.

The Change brought with it the perfect bliss of having no cares, no worries, and no responsibilities. Kana's consciousness – or her spirit, if one was so inclined – now had control of their shared body; Alex floated as a ghostly form next to herself. Kana tore the wrapper from her chocolate bar and munched on it merrily. She loved the sweet, sugary taste of white chocolate. Alex preferred dark, but she was just strange. It was like eating raw cocoa! It sucked flavour _out_ of your mouth. There was a lot that Kana didn't understand about her host, but the chocolate thing was one mystery that she would never be able to solve.

She really appreciated Alex's gesture, but she wished that her host had stretched her budget to a bigger chocolate bar; that one just hadn't lasted. She had some money of her own, Alex had opened a bank account for her years ago, but she couldn't remember her PIN number. She was almost sure it started with an eight. She could ask Alex, but that would mean admitting her ignorance, and she wouldn't give Alex the satisfaction!

Which, sadly, meant no more chocolate for her.

She had more than one way of amusing herself. She conjured her yoyo from the mini pocket universe in which she habitually stored it for ease of access, and started to play with it as she walked. Alex had rented a room on the starbase, but she hated it, so she made her way down to the landing bay levels and across to the _Shadow Wing_. She could have blipped aboard the craft directly if she had wished, but the starbase's immigration was a bitch – they would throw all kinds of fits tomorrow when Alex tried to come back aboard when their system said she hadn't left. Bureaucracy was a bitch.

It was comfy aboard the _Wing_, as homely as it got for someone who had never had a true home. Well…maybe Alex, but that was a little different. Alex was more of a life partner than a home. A partner for Alex's life, that was. She would go on and on, but Alex would not. That always made her sad when she thought about it, which was why she tended not to. What would she do when Alex was gone? Only a century, tops. She had seen countless quantities of those go by, didn't used to consider them all that long. Now, she couldn't bear to think that far ahead. When had she got so sentimental?

Had Alex been drinking? Why else would she be in such a self-reflective mood?

Deciding that if Alex hadn't been drinking, she certainly should, Kana walked into the miniature mess hall and helped herself to a can of premium larger from the fridge. She pulled the tab and poured half the contents down her throat. Bubbles rose in her throat. Alex would have belched, but Kana was more sophisticated. Her ladette host often made fun of her about it.

She took her beer with her into the cockpit. In times gone by, the wonders of the universe could be seen through those forward portholes. Today, the only view was of the flight control tower for the east landing bays. The two men on duty were playing cards. Blackjack, if she wasn't mistaken.

There was a light blinking on the comm panel, a waiting message. Curious, she touched the play button.

A familiar face popped up on the screen. His voice rang around the cockpit, a Liverpool accent dangling from each word. "Hey, Nain. Long time and all that. Listen. I've got some…business I know will interest you. Mansfield. I think you remember the place. I'll be aboard my ship; you can find me easy enough. If you ain't coming, let me know. Don't piss me around, Nain."

Kana thought on Alex's promise – that tomorrow would be her free day, to do with as she pleased. She had made plans. Sketchy plans, but still plans.

The delete button was red and tempting. No message, no problem. Comm signals were lost in subspace all the time.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter Two 

Riker hadn't seen Doctor Miranda Pauli in nearly three years. Not since that Christmas party that neither of them would ever forget. He had tried to hook up with her every time he had been in system, but she had always been busy with work – something to do with Starfleet, was as much as she would tell him, and he knew better than to try fishing for information when the Federation's new primary military force was involved.

It seemed the last three years had been about five times as long for Miranda. It was hard to define exactly how she looked so old. Maybe it was the odd thread of grey in her otherwise black hair, or the worried hunch that she had developed, or the worn, brown, unfashionable clothes that the stylish Miranda he knew would never have worn. Maybe it was the air of fevered worry, of a collection of troubles that should have taken decades to accumulate.

Riker ran out to meet her, taking her heavy case from her. She hugged him, crying into his shoulder. It took a moment for her to compose herself. She stood up straight, sniffed, and breathed, "It's good to see you, Lance."

"Miranda. What's happened? Are you all right?"

"I need to get away. I can't tell you. Just…just get us away?"

"Us?"

A little girl appeared behind Miranda, as though on cue. She was small, and couldn't have been more than eight; she wore a simple blue dress, and her long blond hair tied back with a blue ribbon. Her eyes were cobalt and frighteningly intense. She stared at him, reactionless, and Riker thought that she might be autistic; she didn't seem aware of him.

Miranda held out a hand. Wordlessly, the girl came forward and took the woman's hand.

"This is Susan."

Was she Miranda's daughter? Riker looked, but he honestly couldn't see anything of her in Susan. Maybe the girl had inherited mostly from her father. But no…Susan was at least eight, he had seen Miranda three years ago, and he had been…so where the hell had Susan come from?

"Hello, Captain Riker."

Was that a child's voice? So measured and patient and intelligent? Where was the chirpy innocence? She sounded so cold, almost Vulcan.

Miranda grabbed his hand before he could worry for too long. "Lance. Can you get us away? Can you?"

"Where?"

"Anywhere!"

She was really desperate. What had happened to her? He knew this wasn't the time to ask. Susan's absolute calmness was a spooky counterpoint to Miranda's agitation. "Get aboard."

Miranda hurried through the hatch, pulling Susan along behind her. Still the girl seemed unperturbed, as though whatever world Miranda's fear resided in, it wasn't hers.


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter Three 

Dressed in his best suit, a beautiful woman on his arm, the atmosphere a swirl of music and conversation and laughter and joy, he should have been having a great time. He had loved to dance from a young age, way back when the other kids at school had laughed and called him gay because of it. Tonight was a formal ball; all partnered dancing, both fast and slow. It should have been joyous.

It seemed to be for everyone else. Nwabudike and his partner were laughing as they twirled, Tholiar and Chief Fran (an unlikely couple in the captain's eyes) were stumbling along but enjoying themselves none the less, even Doctor Sarn was dancing, her partner, Brok, following clumsily; and around them, hundreds of other Starfleet and exchanged officers glided across the dance floor.

Drake was going through the motions, putting on a credible show, but his heart wasn't in it.

His partner noticed. She said quietly, "What's with you tonight?"

"Pardon?"

"You danced better than this at the first year summer ball, and you had a sprained ankle."

"I fell during the assault course," he remembered.

"Right. What's wrong, Will?"

"Nothing. It's nothing."

"William Leonard Drake," she sounded so much like his mum when she said that – he suspected that was the effect she was going for, "you're a lousy liar. Out with it, and that's an order."

"Equal rank."

"Seniority," she reminded him, although he knew it perfectly well.

"Yes, Ma'am. I'm thinking about one of my crew."

Jane Frude, captain of the Daedalus-class _Excelsior_, had been a friendly rival – or perhaps competitor was a better word – of Drake's since their Academy days. Despite this long acquaintance, she didn't know him as well as Nwabudike or Hiro Matsura did. They would have known immediately who he was talking about, while Jane frowned and asked, "Who?"

"Alex." After a moment of blankness, he felt obliged to clarify, "Nain."

"She's your helmsman, isn't she? The tom-boyish one?"

"She prefers to be called a ladette."

Jane wrinkled her nose. The word was new to her, and she didn't like the sound of it. "What's that?"

"Don't know, really. I think it just means tomboy. She's British," he explained.

"So what's worrying you about her?"

"I haven't seen a lot of her lately is all. It just…I don't know. She hasn't been around. That's not like her."

"Is that a crush?"

"No."

Jane nodded. "Good. Because I'd hate to have to give you the shipboard-romances-are-a-bad-idea talk. I had to remind my XO, Abish, of that the other day."

"We're just friends," insisted Drake. "Anyway…Alex…I don't think she does relationships. One night stands are her thing."

"Then what's the matter?"

"Like I said, she hasn't been around. She's not even here tonight."

"From the sounds of her," said Jane, hiding her disinterest behind a kindly smile, "a fancy ball doesn't seem like her sort of event."

"I suppose so."

In truth, Alex's absence tonight did not surprise Drake. When he had first mentioned the ball to her, her reply could politely be paraphrased as "No, not for all the wealth in the Syndicate" and in reality had made frequent use of the f-word, usually in sentences like "Me, at a ball? Are you f-ing mad?"

So no, he had not honestly expected her this evening, but that she wasn't here upset him all the same. He hadn't seen much of her lately. And when his emotionless Vulcan exchange officer was present and his fun-loving human friend wasn't, what did that say about the state of affairs?

It wasn't like he would have even expected her to dance. She could have come for the drink. It was free, fizzy, and alcoholic – three of her favourite things. He had thought that might tempt her, but no, she had stayed away.

He shouldn't have let her absence upset him so much, he knew. It wasn't like they were dating, he hadn't asked her to be his partner, and she had said she wasn't coming. She was just a friend, but a very special friend.

He endeavoured to put her out of his mind and enjoy himself. In the former he was quite successful, but as for the later…no one can force themselves to have fun. He danced and he danced well, few others able to match his competence and passion on the floor. He swapped partners several times, and even the most flat-footed of them glided under his lead. On some level he was even quite satisfied with the quality of his performance, but some critical element of fun was missing.

He found himself dancing with Sarn at one point. He tried to be fair to her on the ship, but he had always disliked Vulcans; thought them as cold, aloof, arrogant. He was surprised to find out how well she danced, how much…feeling she put into it. If she was the heartless automaton he had always believed Vulcans to be, how could she dance with such passion? Had he, perhaps, miss-judged her?

When they came off the dance floor, Drake invited Sarn to join himself, Nwabudike and Jane, while they sat, drank, and shared stories of recent adventures. Frude had been on border patrol for three months, and had had a skirmish with a Klingon bird of prey, which made for a good story. Nwabudike had been on a diplomatic mission to Bolarus, the Bolian home world. When Drake told his friends what he had been doing, they winced.

"Ouch," said Jane. "Scientific duty?"

"Nothing but. We surveyed two comets, one planet, and what…? Sixteen moons."

"Seventeen," corrected Sarn.

"Seventeen?" He thought a moment. "Oh. You mean the asteroid out by that big blue gas giant."

"Yes, sir. It was in orbit around the planet, and therefore technically a moon."

It had been a puny little rock, about the size of Manhattan Island, and Drake really didn't think it should count; but he wasn't about to argue scientific technicalities with Sarn. Not after two glasses of champagne. "Seventeen moons."

"The admiral must hate you."

"He always has."

Jane remembered, "That's right. You were on _Kyoto_ together, with Matsura."

"That's right."

"What did you do to get in his bad books, Will?"

"Nothing."

"That seems unlikely, Captain."

Drake shook his head. "We're illogical human beings, Doctor. We can hate someone for no reason. Maybe just because they have a funny accent, or a silly haircut."

"Those are reasons, sir."

"She's got a point," agreed Nwabudike. "And you do have a funny accent."

"I do not!"

"Sure you do. Luna-boomers always have odd accents. All those different nationalities mashed together in a tight space…you get a sort of mix of all different accents."

Jane was quick to join in the game. "You're from Tyco City, aren't you? That's the most popular destination for people emigrating from Earth."

"No wonder he's got such a silly accent," Nwabudike grinned at his fellow captain.

"See what you've started?" Drake complained.

Sarn replied, "My apologies, Captain."

If he had looked deep into her dark eyes, he would have seen a faint hint of amusement. Behind her Vulcan reserve, she was enjoying herself.

"How long do you think McCaffrey is going to keep you on scientific detail?"

"Until the heat death of the universe. Why? Are you keen to take our place?"

Jane shrugged. "I wouldn't object. Border patrol is no fun. At least exploration gives you something new to look at, not just the same patch of space for three months."

"At least you got to see some action."

"I suppose. We were lucky, though. The _Daedalus_, _Icarus_, _Helios_, and _Helix_ were out there with us, and they saw nothing. Hiro was jealous."

"I'll bet," laughed Drake. Hiro Matsura, captain of the _Daedalus_, was a soldier – gifted in battle, weak at everything else. He had played a leading role in the Battle of Cheron at the end of the Romulan War, and for his part in that critical victory Starfleet had awarded him with the captaincy of the Daedalus-class prototype. These days, he was on a near-permanent patrol of the Klingon border. If anything ever happened, his talent for battle would be vital. _If_ anything ever happened.

"For my part," continued Drake, "I would settle for a different kind of boredom."

"It may be a possibility."

The captain perked up. "Really?"

"Yes. There are many uncharted systems along the Klingon border."

The three humans stared at her blankly for a moment. Then Jane and Nwabudike began to laugh, while Drake asked, "Was that a joke?"

"Of course not, Captain."

After careful consideration, he decided to laugh anyway.

In point of fact, Sarn had meant for the comment to be humorous. Her fellow Vulcans would not have approved, but Sarn was used to their disapproval by now. She had rejected _kholinar_, shunned several of Sarek's teachings, rejected the mate her family had selected for her, killed him in the heat of the _Pon Farr_ blood fury, and had insisted on being posted aboard a ship full of illogical humans. Her family had long since disowned her, declaring that she was no longer their daughter, that she could go and make her own mistakes in the world, they did not care.

So she had.

Regrets were illogical. She had none anyway, she told herself.

"What's funny?" Asked a very familiar and welcome voice.

"Sweet damn! You came after all," said Nwabudike, beating Drake to it by a second.

Alex Nain grinned impishly. "Sure. Free booze and the chance to watch COs make pratts of themselves. Why wouldn't I?"

"You were categorical that you would not attend when the captain suggested it."

"Hey, Sarn. Yeah, I know. I had a change of heart. Besides, I heard that Will's been keeping a little secret from me."

He smiled at her. "Balance. You keep secrets from me."

"Yeah, but none of mine are as good. You never told me that you can dance."

Drake was nonchalant. "I don't like to boast."

"Yeah? Show me your moves." She held out her hand.

He was sceptical; he knew Alex far too well, knew her character, what interested her. Somehow, the foxtrot and tango didn't sit nicely with her hobbies of drinking and belching contests. "Can you dance?"

"I can do everything," she replied, her grin growing. "Come on, I'll show you."

He took her hand and let her lead him onto the dance floor. Everyone had dressed up for this occasion, some more than others. Drake was wearing an elegant black suit and tie, as were most men; the majority of women were clad in silky evening dresses, while the non-human members of the congregation wore their species' version of formal evening wear. Alex, as was typical for her, broke the pattern. She was dressed pretty much in her normal clothes, except that the material was of higher quality, and there was some added decoration, patterns stitched into the front of the vest and down the sides of her trouser legs. These clothes were platinum, with gold trimming, as opposed to her regular sky-blue and silver. Although not as spectacular as the dresses the other women were wearing, this look suited Alex far better. She had never been the most feminine woman that Drake knew, and he found it hard to imagine her in a dress.

Drake led, Alex following smoothly, surprising the captain no end. In addition to not being able to picture her in a dress, he had never imagined her as a dancer. Not this kind of dance, anyway. Maybe the nightclub, crowded floor, dirty gyrations kind of dancing, but not ballroom. It was just too…_clean_ for her.

"You're full of surprises."

"Here's another one for you," she said, quietly, so that only her captain could hear her. "I need a few days."

"For what?"

He led her through a pirouette, her long cloak flying around them both as she span. Against the blur of white and gold, her red hair and eyes stood out prominently. Somehow, her eyes always seemed to be on him, even when her head was turned.

"Leave."

He still didn't get it. "We're on leave now."

"Technically, we're just inactive, and with a starbase to hang out on. I need to go away from the station, take my ship for a spin. I could be a while."

"Where? Why?"

Should I lie? Wondered Alex. She could have told her friend a plausible fiction, one that would have kept him happy. Probably happier than the truth, but something in the way he looked at her compelled her to be honest, "A friend of mine has some information he needs to share with me."

Drake couldn't help being curious. "What sort of information?"

"I don't know; that was all he told me. He doesn't like to say too much over non-secure channels. I can't blame him, really."

"Why?"

Oops, thought Alex. She had been trying to tell Drake what she was going to do without mentioning exactly who her 'friend' was – the truth, just not the _whole_ truth. Now, the only way that she could answer without lying was to say something that would upset him. She decided to stick with honesty. "He's part of the Cartel."

The captain's eyebrows disappeared into his hairline. At the same time, a confusing mixture of anger, worry, and betrayal rolled through his eyes. His dancing became tenser, more aggressive, and Alex knew that he was very upset. "The Cartel?" Was what he said, in a tone that warned that lies would not be tolerated.

Which was a pity, Alex thought, as she had been considering abandoning her honesty is the best policy approach.

"That's right."

Drake was not impressed. The Cartel was the biggest organised crime institution in the known galaxy. It had come into being at almost the same time as the Federation itself, and some considered it to be the criminal underworld's response to the formation of that immense political and military union; hundreds of criminal organisations of different species had banded together under a common banner. Today, they were a threat to fledgling colonies everywhere, and a perennial headache for the law-enforcers of the Federation. Drugs and arms trade, prostitution, murder, robbery, extortion, the Cartel was involved in everything going.

And Alex was connected to it.

"You never told me you had dealings with the _Cartel_!"

"I don't!" She protested, upset herself now. "Will, do you honestly think I would work for those murdering, slave-trading _fuckers_?"

He hoped, he honestly hoped, that she wouldn't; that she would never sink that low. But it was a possibility. There was a dark side to his friend, and he had seen it. A part of her that was capable of just about anything.

She read his mind, but she didn't stop dancing, and she didn't let him stop either. If they came off the dance floor, their conversation would no longer be private, and he was the only person whom she wanted to know any of this. Sarn and Nwabudike were friends – she didn't know the other captain – but there were aspects of her life that she wouldn't trust them with; this was one of them.

"You have a very low opinion of me."

On the contrary, Captain Drake thought more highly of Alex than she did. "You said that your friend is with the Cartel."

"Yeah."

"They don't deal with any but their own."

"That's usually true," she agreed. A smile started to pull at her lips again, as her fiery temper rapidly cooled. "But my 'friend' is a little different. He owes me a favour that he'll never be able to repay, so from time to time he slips useful bits of information my way. It helped no end when I was a privateer. And when we were on _Challenger_, during the war, he always let me know if he heard about Romulan fleet movements in our sector."

"That's how you were so well informed."

"Right. I haven't heard from him in a while now. Last night, I got a message. He sounded anxious. I don't know what he wants to tell me, but I know it's urgent. I have to go."

He had known Alex for years now; he could tell when she was being open and honest with him, when she was hiding things to further her own agenda, and when she was just lying for the sake of it. Right now, she was being as honest as she ever was (there was still something…that big secret that she had carried from the day he had met her). He believed and trusted her.

But he was sorry that she would be going. Would he never get to share any quality time with his buddy?

"Granted."

"Great! Thanks, Will. Come with me?"

For the second time that night, he almost lost his footing. Had she…? "Did you…?"

"Yeah. Come with me."

"Why?"

She shrugged, smoothly incorporating the bob of her shoulders into the rhythm of their dance. "There are some rough characters where I'm going, Will. They might try to take advantage of poor defenceless little me. But they'd think twice if I had a big, beefy partner with me."

Flattering, he thought as he laughed. "Alex, I've never met anyone you can't wipe out without breaking a sweat."

"Okay… Maybe I just want to spend some time with my mate. Is that so wrong? Besides, you've shown me your world. It's about time I repaid the favour."

He was heartened by her offer, and he accepted it, looking forward to the glimpse into the underworld that she was offering him. But he didn't believe that it was really _her_ world that he would see; he didn't believe that she had one. She spent her life wandering, walking through other peoples' worlds like a tourist, never setting down any roots, never belonging, always leaving ample signs of her passing. She came into lives, touched them, changed them, and moved on. For a time, she would rest in one place, play at living a normal life, but eventually she would move on. He had known that about her from the moment they had met.

A part of him dreaded the eventual, inevitable day when she left his life.

He thought he knew why she was always moving on. It had something to do with the big secret she carried, something to do with her red eyes. He wished that she would let him in on it. Then she wouldn't have to go.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Where the hell did you learn to dance like that?" Nwabudike Lal demanded as they rejoined their friends.

"What do you mean?" Grinned Alex. She was still buzzing from her dancing. Will had been by far and away the best partner that she had ever had. They had worked perfectly together, their moves meshing together harmoniously. She wished that they had had the opportunity to dance together before, but she hadn't even known that he danced. She hadn't thought it the sort of thing her frontiersman friend would be into.

The roguish Captain Lal was chuckling to disguise his astonishment. "I didn't have you pinned as a ballroom dancer."

"What? Are you saying I've got no class?" She snatched a glass of bubbly white wine from a passing server and drained the contents in one go. She burped loudly.

"No class at all," Nwabudike told her.

"Indeed not," said Sarn.

"I'm getting picked on," she complained to Drake.

"They were having a go at me earlier. Something about having a funny accent."

"We're both unfairly victimised."

Although, thought Alex, you do have a funny accent.

Although, thought Drake, you do have absolutely no class.

Nwabudike wasn't about to let the subject drop. "Come on, how did you learn to dance like that? More to the point, why?"

Alex skipped lightly from foot to foot. Although she and Drake had just churned up the dance floor, she was full of energy; she felt more energised now than she had all day. She wanted to get right back out there, join in the tango that was starting up, but Drake was sitting down, and none of the others looked keen. Kana might have been, but dancing with an invisible partner wasn't something she indulged in when there were witnesses, and she was sober.

So she answered Nwabudike's question. "Shuttling cargo from one side of the Federation to the other can be the most boring thing imaginable. You've got to do things to keep yourself occupied. I tried writing a novel once, but…well…"

"You cannot spell," pointed out Sarn.

"Yeah, that was the biggest problem. Also, I couldn't work out how the middle of the story should go. I had the beginning and the end, but what happened in between…God might have known, but I didn't. So I gave up. Taught myself dance instead."

"_Ahem? Who taught you dance?"_

"_This probably isn't the best occasion to reveal my big secret, do you think?"_

"You learnt partnered dancing on your own?"

Alex shook her head. "Nah. That would have been ridiculous. I had a partner."

"Who?"

Drake was also intrigued. "I thought you worked alone."

"I've always had a vivid imagination."

Sarn hitched up a thin black eyebrow. "You danced with an imaginary partner?"

"I called her Kana."

"_There, happy now? That's sort of truthful."_

"_Sort of,"_ the other Nain reluctantly allowed.

Drake and the other captains chuckled, while Sarn raised the other eyebrow. Whether she was being honest or making up an interesting story, it was amusing either way.

"What else did you teach yourself during your shady privateer's life?" Nwabudike enquired.

"Oh, lots of things. I went through a period where I just studied language. Any and every language I could get my hands on. That was interesting. I tried mathematics, but I couldn't make sense of all the squiggles and symbols. I also tried to teach myself some science, but that was hopeless."

"Why so?"

Alex smiled at her favourite Vulcan. "Well, for one thing, I'm not sure what all the different erm…disciplines…is that the right word? Disciplines mean."

"I could endeavour to explain it to you."

"I'd appreciate it. Pop by the _Wing_ tomorrow, say."

"I shall."

Alex noticed her other self watching her. _"Why do you want her to visit us?"_

"_I like her."_

"_Fair enough."_

"_You don't?"_

Kana shrugged. _"I don't exactly dislike her. She's a bit boring. The old Vulcans knew how to have fun, before they embraced all this logic and pacifism crap. They were warriors and bloody tyrants. Those were interesting people. Sarek wasn't a great philosopher, he was the biggest party-pooper in history."_

Alex Nain smiled at her other self's comment. Kana had always taken pleasure in the darker aspects of life. If that had ever bothered her, it didn't now. It hadn't for a long time.

The female captain interrupted her ponderings. "I'm Jane Frude. You're Will's friend?"

"Alex Nain." They shook hands. "How do you know the captain?"

"We were at the Academy together."

"_They were rivals."_

"_How can you tell?"_

Kana stepped out from behind Captain Frude, wearing her arrogant little 'I know something that you don't' smile. _"Listen to her tone of voice when she speaks about Will. Observe the way they watch each other. They might be friends now, but they were adversaries before."_

"_Sure you're not reading into something that's not there?"_

"They hated each other," Nwabudike laughed. "Always trying to out do each other."

"_I rest my case."_

"No we weren't," both Drake and Frude protested, simultaneously.

Alex sent a smile across to Sarn. The Vulcan was listening to, but perhaps not fully understanding what was being said.

"Rivalry can be healthy," she said. "It encourages growth and betterment."

"It also creates some great stories that can come back and embarrass you years later." Alex rubbed her hands together excitedly, grinning manically. "So, who wants to go first?"


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

"I have not been aboard your craft before," commented Sarn as she stepped through the airlock. It opened onto a short corridor, narrower than the ones aboard the _Endeavour_, exposed pipes and conduits snaking across the ceiling, the floor grid metal that reverberated loudly with each footstep. Indecipherable Orion markings were stamped in orange on various panels and bulkheads. Presumably, Alex could read them, but xeno-linguistics was not a course that Sarn had ever taken. She could read English because it was the standard human language used aboard Starfleet ships, but learning it had been difficult for her, and there were times when she had to translate what she was seeing into Vulcan to understand it.

Alex was standing further down the corridor, sending a yoyo crawling up and down its string. Sarn watched for a moment. She had been unaware that Alex played with toys. Also, the way that her shipmate was standing gave her pause. Alex was rarely still; she fidgeted, she hopped, she always seemed to have too much energy. She had a…a fascinating childishness. But right now, she was standing tall, still, and proud. Sarn had never seen her look so…well…powerful, dramatic.

"Alex…?"

The image collapsed a moment later. Alex lost control of her yoyo; it shot to the end of its string and spun chaotically, while she scrabbled to grab it up. Once she had control over the wayward yoyo again, she balled the string around it and went to put it in her pocket, before realising that it wouldn't fit into her trouser pocket, and then staring at it for a moment, wondering what to do with it. She suddenly remembered that she had been addressed, spun wildly, her cloak swimming around her, and grinned one of her enormous smiles at the Vulcan.

"Sarn! Great to see you! How's it going?"

"I am well, Alex. You seem surprised by my presence."

"Nah. Not really. I was just a little…I was off in my own world, that's all."

"Your own world?"

"Yeah. You know…in my head."

"Of course," said Sarn cautiously, unsure, as she often was, as to what her friend was talking about. "You suggested that I come to your ship today."

"Right! Sarn, are you bored here? Not _here_ here, but here on Starbase Two." The Vulcan started to reply, but Alex cut her off. "I know boredom's an emotion and all that, but I know you guys get bored. Do you think you could be using your time in a more productive way?"

Sarn hadn't been going to debate Alex's use of the word boredom. Vulcans did get bored, all sentient life forms did, it was unavoidable. She had always thought saying that one's time was being used inefficiently was an illogical waste of words; why not just be honest?

"I am bored. Why do you ask?"

"I'm going to be going off the starbase for a few days. I have a friend on Mansfield who wants to see me. Do you know anything about the place?"

"It is a large trading station. It was established by the Rigelians, but a human consortium bought it, refit it, and renamed it."

Alex nodded, impressed by her friend's knowledge. "Dead right. It can be a little rough, but it's an interesting place."

"You are inviting me to accompany you?"

"Yup. Wanna come?"

Sarn didn't need to think about it. "I will accompany you."

"Great!" Alex clapped, overjoyed. "Pack a bag, we're leaving this evening, about seventeen hundred, SST. That should give me enough time to clean up a couple of the spare rooms."

"Why do you need to clean more than one?"

"Will's coming as well."

Sarn felt discomfort swim in her guts for a moment, before her control could smother it. "The captain?"

"That's right." Alex sensed her friend's consternation, and she reassured, "I know Will's been a little…brusque with you. He doesn't mean to be. His dad hated your people with a passion, and some of that rubbed off on him. You know our species only recently became proper friends."

"Yes."

"Will's an open minded sort of guy. He can get past his prejudices. You just need to let him get to know you."

"The captain's opinion of me does not concern me."

Alex shook her head, tittering. "Sarn, you can't lie to me. You don't need to, anyway. Come on. Even if you and Will never get along, we can have fun. Right?"

The human never treated her any differently from anyone else on the ship, which Sarn appreciated. With other Vulcans, it would have been different; Alex would have had to listen to any number of speeches about how Vulcans don't have 'fun'. Again, that was false. Even the most disciplined Vulcan experienced emotion, they just chose not to display it or let it have any sway over their decision-making, that was all. Sarn didn't see the logic in pretending to have no emotions. She did, and they were powerful things indeed.

"I will accompany you, Alex," she promised.

"Excellent! Glad to hear it."

"Perhaps, during the voyage, I will get the opportunity to teach you some of my profession."

The human smiled agreeably. "I'd like that."

As Sarn made her way out of the _Shadow Wing_, some time later, she couldn't help noticing that Alex had got her yoyo back out, that her unshakable confidence had returned. As she watched the Vulcan go, her crimson eyes were narrowed, and it almost seemed that there were fires burning behind those eyes.

Heading back to her quarters to pack, Sarn thought of the ancient statue they had discovered on an alien planet not so long ago; a depiction of two Alex Nains, one noble and heroic, the other dark, twisted. She had yet to discover how that statue had come to be, or who had made it, but she wondered if Alex's mood as she had seen it on leaving the _Shadow Wing_ had been inspiration for that 'other' Alex.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Captain Lance Riker found his passenger in his ship's small combined kitchen-mess hall. She was sitting at the only table, playing solitaire with an old pack of playing cards. They had been in space for more than a day now, heading away from the Federation's core systems at warp three – not record-breaking speed, but the fastest that Riker's old tub could manage. At first, Miranda had been greatly relieved, and with each light year that passed, she relaxed a bit more; then, for no reason that Lance could see, she suddenly panicked again, returned to being the nervous, jittery woman that he had met on Vulcan.

Playing cards now, she looked a little calmer.

"Susan's finally gone to bed?"

Miranda had been wholly absorbed in her game, and at the sound of Lance's voice she leapt out of her chair. For a moment, she had the look of an animal backed into a corner, terrified and desperate, but that passed when she recognised the merchant. She sank back into her chair, breathing deeply. "You scared me to death."

"Sorry. I was just saying, has Susan gone to bed?"

"Yes. Yes, she's asleep. She can sleep at any time. She's lucky."

"Maybe you should be in bed, too?"

Miranda drew a card and shook her head. "I can't sleep right now. I've got too much on my mind."

"I noticed," agreed Lance. "Do you…?"

"No. Thank you, Lance, but…the less you know about this, the better."

If that statement was supposed to make him lose interest in Miranda's problem, it really didn't work. However, he could tell that she wasn't going to talk about it right now, and he knew better than to press her. If anything was more guaranteed to get her to clam up, it was pressing her, so he backed off. He knew how this game was played. "Okay. I just thought you should know, we'll be at Mansfield in three days."

"Mansfield?" Her eyes widened. "Why are we going there?"

"To refuel. That's what I was on Vulcan for in the first place, but with your urgency to get away, I didn't have time to complete the refuelling."

"I've heard of Mansfield. It's a rough place. I…I wouldn't want to take Susan there. Isn't there somewhere else…?"

"No where in range that isn't a Starfleet installation. And I'm guessing that you don't want to visit one of their bases?"

He made a note of the fear that flickered in her eyes, and wondered what had happened to her while she was working for Starfleet to make her so scared of it. What had those bastards done to her?

"Mansfield will be fine," she said, not able to disguise the tremor in her voice.

"Three days, then. Don't worry; we'll be as quick as we can be. Touch and go, I promise."

"I'll hold you to it," Miranda said, drawing another card.

Her calm act didn't fool Riker at all.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In her dream, Susan could hear them talking. She could hear Miranda Pauli's worry, and Lance Riker's concern for his friend. She knew that he wondered where she had come from, how she could be Doctor Pauli's child. She knew that she was responsible for all of the doctor's misery and fear and paranoia.

She knew that they were being hunted.

She knew that their salvation awaited them on Mansfield: the host and the Dark Soul, two individuals who were different sides of the same person. She would save them from the hunters.

She knew that she would have to find the twin-soul woman herself; Doctor Pauli and Lance wouldn't know to look for her, wouldn't understand if she tried to explain.

She knew that if she failed, the three of them would die, and far, far more would suffer in the long run.

She wished that she didn't know so much.

She wished that she had never been.


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

"You're not going to wear that, are you?"

Will Drake brushed down his navy blue jacket and tried to work out why his friend was wearing that incredulous expression. "Why not?"

"Do you know what you look like, Will?"

Sensibly dressed, was what he thought, but he didn't say it. He was wearing quiet, tasteful clothes of the kind that anyone on the street might be seen in. Quite unlike the sky-blue cloak that draped around Alex, or the earth-coloured robe that Sarn had dressed in. Those two would stick out in a crowd, while he would blend in.

"What do I look like, Alex?"

"Like…I don't know…some guy. Someone you'd walk past on the street without noticing."

"I thought that was the idea. Civilian clothes, right?"

She pulled a face. "Will, you're meant to be a privateer, a brawny tough I've hired to work for me. No self-respecting privateer dresses like that! Be creative! Show some style." She grinned and gestured at herself. "Like me."

"You're saying I should wear a cloak?"

"No. That's my thing. Look, just…spice it up a bit, yeah? Wear a Hawaiian shirt, or that Andorian hat Tholiar gave you for your birthday."

"I didn't bring it."

Alex grumbled. "Just do something, Will. Something a bit outrageous. And you've only got an hour and a half before we dock, so be quick about it."

He wasn't enthusiastic. He had never been one for outrageous fashions. Even as a teenager he had preferred muted colours and sensible clothes to the crazy – frankly ludicrous – fashions that his friends had been into. He thought that Alex would look a lot better if she did without the cloak, but she would never listen.

"I don't see Sarn wearing anything crazy," he said, thinking that he sounded a bit like a petulant child.

"She's my accountant. She handles all the money matters. You know, buying, selling, haggling, busting kneecaps when people try to swindle us. She doesn't need to look exciting." Alex shone a smile at the Vulcan and added, "Not that I'm saying you're not exciting, Sarn."

She raised one eyebrow a millimetre or two, but otherwise showed no reaction. Alex took that to be a sign that she hadn't caused offence, and returned her attention to the captain. Folding her arms, she said in no uncertain terms, "Get changed."

"Yes, ma'am," Drake drawled.

"That's 'yes, my most benevolent mistress.'"

He chuckled. "Fat chance."

The cabins aboard the _Shadow Wing_ were cramped affairs, even by the _Endeavour_'s standards. A bunk and a chest of drawers took up all of the room, leaving just a small gap in between for the occupant to squeeze down to the door. Alex lived quite comfortably in her cupboard, but even after two days aboard, Drake couldn't get around his room without banging various parts of his anatomy against things. He was seriously considering sleeping on the couch in what Alex called the gaming room – it was, in actuality, an auxiliary engine monitoring centre, but she never used it for that, and over the years it had become cluttered with games and other recreation materials.

He had packed light, enough changes of clothing for a week or so. Most of it was sensible, practical wear – shirts, jeans, light jackets, nothing fancy – but he had also packed a smart-casual grey suit. Some part of him must have foreseen Alex's criticism of his clothing, as he had brought the clothes she had bought for him for his birthday, a year or so ago now. She had said that he reminded her of the stereotypical frontiersman pioneer, with his big bushy beard, bulky build, and booming voice. To complete the image, she had bought him sturdy boots, brown combat trousers, a red and black checked shirt, and a short leather jacket. He had only worn those clothes once, to make her happy, but now he pulled them on again. Checking himself in the mirror, he was irritated to see that she had a point; he did look like that old stereotype. He considered shaving the beard off.

Annabelle likes the beard, he reminded himself. He was fond of it himself, and it was as much of an excuse as anything, but it got him thinking. He fished through his top drawer and found the pad he had brought with him from the _Endeavour_, on which was the latest in a chain of subspace letters that he and Annabelle had been exchanging. He had begun working on it back on Starbase Two, but had been struggling for things to put, owing to the inactivity of the station. The last couple of days he had forgotten all about it, but now he had something to write.

He tried sitting on his bunk and writing, but it was too cramped in his room to comfortably manage, so he took his pad into the gaming room. Resting the pad on a miniature pool table (what was Alex doing with a pool table on her ship when she had never had any crew but herself?) he began to write:

It's been a few days since I put pen to paper (what a strange thing to write, in this digital age, but somehow stylus to pad just doesn't read right). After we returned to Starbase Two, Admiral McCaffrey gave us some nonsense story about the _Endeavour_ needing a starbase inspection after its prolonged deep space assignment (I don't call a few weeks poking around a solar system a prolonged assignment, but those were his words). Anyway, he told me, there wasn't anything that we could be doing even if the ship was serviceable. I refrained from pointing out that we're on the brink of war with the Klingon Empire, and that the _Endeavour_ should be joining the fleet. I wonder what his answer to that would have been. "Klingons? What Klingons?" Most likely.

So, I've spent the last little while sitting around the starbase and twiddling my thumbs. I imagine you're reading this and thinking "lucky bastard", so let me make you feel even more jealous: Nwabudike was in port as well. So was Jane Frude – I told you about her, but I don't think you've ever met. That was pleasant, but you can't imagine how envious I was of Jane when she told me about her run-in with a Klingon ship.

I think the only thing that kept me from sinking into depression (apart from the timely arrival of your letter – I'm glad to hear that Sally transferred successfully, I remember you telling me about her troubles) was Alex's intervention. One of her less-reputable friends wants to see her, and she invited me to accompany her. So, here I am, aboard her little ship, flying to Mansfield station and writing to you. We arrived in about an hour. I don't know what we'll do while we're there. I doubt that Alex will want us with her when she meets her friend, so that will leave Doctor Sarn and I to explore the station at our leisure.

Doctor Sarn is the Vulcan science officer attached to the _Endeavour_. I can't remember if I've mentioned that. You know how I feel about Vulcans, and I can see you shaking your head as you read this and thinking "poor, poor Sarn." Don't. She's not bad. In fact, I quite like her. She's a lot easier going than the other Vulcans I've met. I haven't once heard her give one of those infamous "Vulcans are superior to humans, and here's why" speeches. In fact, there are some times when I wonder if she's really Vulcan at all. She's a bit warmer than I'm used to from the species. I may be imagining things, but I could swear that she has emotional relationships with certain members of the crew. She is quite friendly towards Alex, while she's more hostile with Walker. Mind you, given how Max treats her, I don't blame her.

Would you believe it – I'm sticking up for a Vulcan! I think I need to go and take my medicine! If I keep this up, I might end up flying the Federation flag from my window.

Footsteps shuffled in the doorway, and Drake look up from his pad. Sarn had entered the room. She picked up the simple red yoyo from the top of the pile of board games in the corner of the room. Turning it over, she remarked, "It is a curious thing. I have seen Alex display consummate skill with this. At other times, she cannot make it unwind without getting tangled."

"That's Alex for you."

"Captain?"

"Would you describe her as stupid?"

Sarn thought it was an odd question to ask, but she answered it all the same. "No, sir. On the contrary, she is highly intelligent."

"She is. But she doesn't like to show it. Schooling isn't cool, you see."

"I don't understand."

The captain shrugged. "Nor do I, really. She knows a lot more than she likes to let on; she has a dearth of hidden skills. Anyone else would show off just a bit, but she doesn't like to. Her brains embarrass her, so she tries to hide them. I think it's silly, but that's just the way she is. Sometimes…you know the statue we pulled up a few weeks back? The two figures that looked remarkably like Alex?"

"I was considering it earlier, sir."

"Probably having the same thoughts that I was. Sometimes it really seems like there are two sides to her. Our helmsman has a dark side." He shook his head. He had seen dark Alex, and he didn't much like her. "I suppose she needed it when she was privateering. It can be a rough game."

Sarn didn't say anything back, so he returned his attention to his pad, but he had lost his rhythm and couldn't put anything down. The Vulcan noticed his expression and asked, "What are you working on, Captain?"

"A letter."

"To Starfleet Command?"

He chuckled. "To Annabelle DeCroix. She's a science officer on the research vessel _Von Braun_. We met a while back at a Starfleet function, and we've…kept in touch."

Sarn nodded. She understood perfectly what the captain meant.

-------------------------------------------------------------

"_Mansfield space station,"_ observed Kana. She was sitting on the rim of the communications panel, watching the small craft's forward view screen. On that monitor, the tower block-like space station was growing steadily in size as they approached. Freighters, shuttles, and private ships of all shapes and sizes buzzed around the installation. Kana spared the ships only the briefest glance; she didn't recognise half of them, and really didn't much care about any of them.

Alex was a little more interested, and particularly by the two largest spaceships present – both of them so big that they couldn't fit into the station's docking berths, and were station-keeping a few hundred kilometres from the installation, while shuttles went back and forth. One was a long, silver, rocket-shaped object; the other was more like a wide, flat stone, greenish-black.

"That's interesting," she muttered aloud.

"_What is?"_

"The two big ships. Recognise them?"

Kana looked and dryly she replied, _"Yeah. Isn't that Frank and George?"_

"The silver one is Cartel, the scummy one is Orion Syndicate."

"_Interesting. What are those two doing together? I thought the Cartel and Syndicate hated each other?"_

"They do. With a passion. I wonder if this is what Malachi wanted to talk to us about."

"_If it is, I'm going to kill him,"_ Kana promised.

"This could be important."

"_No Cartel-Syndicate meeting is worth my free time. If he has no better reason for asking us here, I will kill him."_

"_No, you won't."_

"_Okay. I'll hurt him then."_

"_No."_

"_Just a little?"_

"_No."_

Kana pouted. _"Spoil sport."_

The ship dropped towards the space station, closing steadily, until a traffic controller hailed and put them in a holding pattern. Alex uploaded the pattern into the autopilot, and gave her friend her undivided attention.

"_Why did you tell me about the message anyway, Kana? You could have just deleted it and never told me."_

"_Don't think that didn't occur to me."_

"_So, why didn't you?"_

Kana shrugged. _"I gambled on the off-chance that this would be worth our time. Besides, I was going out of my mind on that starbase. A change of scenery will be nice."_

Alex didn't quite believe her alien counterpart. She quietly suspected that Kana had been worried about what she might have done if she had found out that her other self had been hiding things from her. She didn't say anything; Kana would just deny it anyway.

"Now, I have a question for you. Why Will and Sarn?" 

"_They're my friends. I haven't had a lot of time to spend with them lately."_

"_That's sort of my point,"_ said Kana. _"Mansfield isn't the most stable place in the galaxy. I love it, but your friends are a bit more 'civilised' than me. They might not be so keen. And you know that we have a few pitiful enemies over there. If one of them approaches us…"_

"_I'll blow his brains out, and my friends will be upset."_ Alex nodded; she had thought of that herself. _"I know. But they won't be with us when we go to see Malachi. After we know what he has to say, we can leave straight away. We'll go somewhere a little more friendly."_

"_Such as?"_

"_Risa's within our range. It would only take a few days."_

Kana did not look in the least enthusiastic. _"Risa? Could you pick a more boring destination?"_

"_Great chocolate on Risa."_

"_Nice try."_

"_I'm sure you could pick up a shiny new yoyo."_

The other Nain snorted. _"That's not likely to convince me. I already have a great yoyo."_

Their discussion was interrupted by the traffic controller: there was a landing pad available. The autopilot guided the ship down, while Alex hit the shipwide announcement button on the compact comm panel, "Everyone, we're coming in to land now. Airlock two will be joined with the station. I'll meet you guys there as soon as we connect."

She had visited Mansfield often enough in the past that she knew the docking routine off by heart, and within a few moments the ship was down on its pad, secured with clamps, and the umbilical was attached. Alex shutdown the flight systems, changed the computer's passwords, and left the cockpit. Before joining her shipmates, she passed by the gaming room, and pocketed Kana's yoyo.

"_Why did you take that? You don't play with it."_

Alex grinned over her shoulder at her best friend. _"I thought you might want it."_

"_You're going to let me take over?"_

"_When we're over on Mansfield. You gave up your free time so we could be here. Seems only fair."_

Kana was touched, although she tried not to show it.

"That's better!" Alex approved, upon seeing Drake. "You look the part now."

"Glad to hear it."

They stepped through the inner airlock. While the chamber was cycling, Alex refreshed their memories as to the plan. "As soon as we go aboard, I'll meet my friend. That's something for me to do alone – he won't trust either of you. Take a look around, but stick to the promenade levels. The lower sections can be a bit…dodgy, if you get my drift."

"Understood," they agreed.

"Once we're done here, I was thinking we could swing past Risa on the way back. For a day or so. Chill out, relax, have a good time."

"We are on leave," Drake said, smiling. "We should make the most of it."

The docking level of Mansfield station was a madhouse, with hundreds of people coming and going, a sea of flesh in constant motion, voices filling the air so completely that even shouting at each other, no one could hear what anyone else was saying. The three Starfleet personnel joined the throng of bodies. Alex hollered and gestured in the direction of the turbolifts. Whether Drake understood what she was trying to tell him or not was debatable, but he smiled and waved at her, and let her disappear into the crowd.

She tried to bring about the Change, but with all of the noise, and the constant impacts of people jostling past her, she couldn't concentrate. She ignored the packed turbolifts and fought her way to the stairwells that led between levels. Four floors down, the crowd thinned out enough that she could find a piece of floor to call her own and not have to fight for it. She closed her eyes and focused her mind, balling up her thoughts, cutting herself off from her senses, so that she was just a little sphere of consciousness, isolated from the world. As she retreated more and more into herself she felt a rush of warmth, like a river of pleasure cascading through her soul and sweeping her up in its current. Her cares disappeared, she felt a release as powerful as death, but one from which she could come back. This was the Change; the process by which the twin Nain souls exchanged control of their single body.

Kana's eyes opened, her alien power burning in their depths. She went back up a level, and forced her way through the crowds to reach a particular docking bay. On the other side of the umbilical lay an old J-type freighter, one of Malachi's craft. There was a man standing guard at the airlock. To the casual eye, he looked like just another trader, leaning up against the bulkhead to take a break. Only the intensity with which he watched the crowd gave away his true profession; even his weapons were perfectly concealed.

She started to step through the airlock, and he intercepted her instantly. His hand clamped around her wrist, and Kana froze in place. She cast her eyes downward and warned, "Release me."

"That's a private ship, Missy. No one goes aboard without invitation."

"Conveniently, I have one. Tell your pitiful master that Kana Nain is here to see him. Immediately!"

Within a few minutes, she was being shown onto the ship by a second flunky, whom she paid so little attention to that he might as well have not been there; when he tried to take her to the cockpit by the most convoluted route he could come up with, she simply stepped around him and marched off on her own. She stepped into the ship's control centre, glowered at Malachi, and barked, "Tell your cronies to get out!"

The man in the tatty black suit – a customer or supplier of some kind – jumped up indignantly and puffed, "Now see here!"

Kana gripped his throat and turned the raging fury of her red, red eyes on him. "Now leave here, little man, or suffer my wrath."

Wisely, he opted for the first option, as did everyone else within the sound of Kana's voice. Only Malachi stayed where he was, and he said, "Do you have any idea who that was?"

"Not in the least."

"Alex – "

"Guess again!"

His eyes widened in surprise, before he was able to get a hold of his reaction – proving conclusively that his doorman hadn't bothered to be specific about which Nain was paying a visit. "Kana?"

"The one and only."

"I'm astonished that Alex let you out again."

Kana narrowed her eyes. "If I were you, Malachi, I would watch my slippery tongue. I preserved your miserable existence, and I can terminate it even more easily. Or, to put it in words that rotten lump of grey matter in your skull can comprehend: piss me off and you die!"

He raised his hands. "I get it, I get it."

"What did you want with us? Speak quickly, and make your answer _fantastically_ good."

"I – "

"Before you answer, you should know that your little call interrupted _my_ free time, and I'm not very happy about it. So your answer had better be that good."

He was a man in a good position with the Cartel. A word from him and life could become very unpleasant – or very ended – for anyone he wanted. He gulped down his fright and prayed that Kana would be reasonable. "It's a long story."

"Give me the edited highlights."

"Okay. You know that the Federation has archaeological teams all over the frontier worlds. They're diggin' up artefacts all the time. There's a good market for exotic alien trinkets right now, so the Cartel buys up what it can from people willing to…slip a few bits off world here and there."

"You make a profit from the illegal trade of ancient relics."

"It's a time-honoured tradition," he said.

"It is imbecilic. You don't even know what you're getting your hands on! There were species dead epochs before Earth existed that were more advanced than you fools are now. What makes you think you can play safely with their toys?"

"Well that's what I wanted to talk to you about. See, we got our hands on this artefact a couple of months back. Well…I say 'we', I actually mean…" When he saw Kana's expression he cut short the story of his brilliant acquisition of the relic. "Ahem. Anyways, I had this thing kicking around in my cargo hold for a while, looking for a buyer. You know me, I'm a bit…curious. I like to know what's on my ship. So I had a look. I've got a copy of the archaeologist's findings; they've translated some of the alien language. With that, I was able to read a bit of the text on the tablet. It…well, it wierded me out a bit. I figured you two were the right ones to tell this stuff to. What with your experience with all things alien and mystic, Kana."

"Surprisingly intelligent," she allowed. "Where is this artefact?"

"In the cargo bay. I'll show it to you."

There was nothing special about the crate in which the artefact was stored, and nothing particularly exciting about the tablet itself: it was simply a piece of yellowish stone, slightly bigger than a common clipboard. Kana eyed Malachi. "This is your artefact?"

"Yes."

"Remember what I was saying about pissing me off?"

"Watch." He touched the stone, and characters began to appear, as though some invisible hand was carving them into the rock while Kana watched. In a few seconds, the whole sheet of stone was covered with writing and diagrams. Malachi smirked. "Impressed yet?"

Kana ignored him, her eyes scanning over the text. In a few seconds, she had read and absorbed it all. She touched the bottom left corner of the tablet and the text changed, a new page.

"I didn't know it could do that," admitted Malachi.

"It's a record."

"Yeah, I got that. What's this Star Gate thing it mentions?"

Kana paged through the rest of the tablet's contents, committing everything to her infallible memory. While she read, Malachi asked question after question, all of them about the Star Gate. She quickly got tired of his probing, and pre-empted his next question with one of her own: "Why is there a Cartel and a Syndicate cruiser docked here?"

"Huh? Oh, that. It's the big boys. Ya know, the bosses. They like to make their presence felt from time to time. Heh, and where the Cartel goes, you always get the Syndicate nipping at our heels. I figure those jerks follow our cruiser around."

She didn't even bother listening to his answer; she had just wanted him to shut up about the Star Gate for a few seconds, while she read the last few pages. When she was finished, she picked up the tablet and hurled it against the wall, shattering it and leaving an impressive dent in the titanium bulkhead.

"What the hell are you doing?" Shouted Malachi, aghast.

The alien Nain stood facing him directly, her arms folded and an expression of sincere warning on her face. "I'm glad you brought this to my attention, Malachi. Now, understand this: if you tell anyone about that tablet, what you saw on it, or attempt to locate the Star Gate, I will kill you and everyone who knows you. Is that clear?"

There could be no doubt that she wasn't bluffing, and just to prove that she had the capacity to do as she threatened, she made a gesture, and the fragments of tablet turned into so much yellowish dust. She hadn't needed to, Malachi was quite familiar with Kana Nain's powers, but the reminder helped to underline her point.

"I'll show myself out."

Stepping through the umbilical, Alex spoke for the first time since they had boarded Malachi's craft. _"What was that about? Why did you destroy that tablet? What was on it?"_

"_There are some things that no one should know about, Alex. The Star Gate is one of them."_

"_And…?"_

"_And which part of 'no one should know' did you fail to comprehend?"_

Alex wasn't about to let her counterpart brush her off so easily. _"Kana, you can't not tell me. I recognised that look when you saw Malachi's tablet: fear. Don't deny it, I've seen the same expression on my face in the mirror. This Star Gate thing worries you. What is it? You know you can tell me."_

Kana didn't want to say anything, but looking at her human host and seeing the determination in her, she knew that she would have to. She and Alex were very similar, beyond their shared appearance; their personalities were quite alike, and in that respect their habit of thinking of each other as their 'other self' was not totally misleading. She knew that she could talk Alex into saying things that she otherwise wouldn't, and that her other self could do the same to her. She decided to give in now, rather than endure hours of persistent nagging.

"_Edited highlights,"_ she promised. _"The Star Gate was built eons ago by one of the first humanoid races to inhabit the galaxy. As the name kinda implies, it's a gateway to the stars. Specifically, to the stars outside of this galaxy – a method of intergalactic travel. They used it to send fleets to other galaxies, where they established colonies, did the whole exploration thing, and built more Star Gates. In the end, most of the nearby galaxies were joined by a network of the things, and there was much rejoicing, a lot of stuff about golden ages, new frontiers, all that jazz."_

"_I'm guessing there's a 'what no one knew at the time' comment coming along shortly."_

"_What no one knew at the time,"_ Kana obliged, _"is that the Star Gate wasn't just being used by those ancient humanoids. I think they were called Kalve, if you're interested. It doesn't really matter now – they're all quite dead. Their Star Gates worked by tunnelling through an extra-dimensional realm, and what they didn't know was that that realm was inhabited. And the inhabitants weren't happy about having tourists hiking through their fields. So they attacked."_

"_And?"_

"_And ninety-eight percent of the inhabitants living within the Star Gate network were slaughtered. Whole galaxies were decimated. It was, to put it plainly, a bit of a war. In the end, the invaders were driven out of the Milky Way, and the Star Gate was destroyed behind them."_

"_What about the other galaxies they had attacked?"_

"_What the hell do I care? I don't live in them. Anyway, the Star Gate couldn't be just blown to smithereens; the Kalve had designed it to last. It was built out of neutronium – virtually indestructible. However, the Gate was made up of six individual segments, held together by powerful force fields. We were able to disperse the fields, and scatter the six fragments across the galaxy."_

"_We? You were involved?"_

"Everyone_ was involved, Alex. When I said ninety-eight percent mortality rate, I didn't just mean amongst humanoids. The Enemy attacked us on every plane of existence. My people were just as involved in the war as the Kalve and the others."_

"_I…I didn't know you had a people." _

"_I don't now."_

It didn't take a lot of intelligence to work out what had happened to them, and Alex wished that she had never made the comment. _"I'm sorry."_

Kana smiled at her, to show that she wasn't bothered. _"I'm not. It was a long time ago, and I never much liked them anyway. Besides, it's not like I'm alone. I have you. Anyway, getting back to the tablet. Those aliens, the Omai, discovered one piece of the Star Gate, a few thousand years ago. Fortunately, they also knew about the ancient war, so they didn't try to find any of the other bits. They made a record of it, and that's what the tablet was. Now that I think about it, I recall that the Omai were very fond of record keeping. They were literally a species of bureaucrats. You would have hated them."_

Alex mulled over what she had been told. _"So…you wrecked the tablet so that Malachi couldn't find the Gate piece?"_

"_So that no one could find it. It's too dangerous."_

"_I never had you pinned down as a defender of the galaxy,"_ Alex laughed.

Kana didn't. _"Those invaders decimated this galaxy once before. A million of my people were exterminated just in the battle to force them into the Gate. I'm the only one left. I won't allow those monsters back into my galaxy."_

"_You can rely on me. You know that."_

Kana nodded, grateful for her friend's support. _"I do."_

Feeling that they needed a change of tone, Alex pulled a grin and said, _"I love how you handled Malachi. 'It's me, the mighty and dangerous Kana Nain! Tremble in fear, Malachi. Mwahahaha!'"_ She pulled her best impression of Kana's most dangerous and purring tone of voice for the last part, and was quite pleased with its quality.

Kana laughed. _"I thought you'd appreciate my approach."_

"_Yeah. I love the comic book super villain style, and you do it so brilliantly."_

"_I've often considered getting a white cat."_

"_It would suit you. Go nicely with the volcanic lair and the spike pits."_

"_They're brilliant, aren't they?"_

The Nains kept swapping jovial banter as they headed off in search of their friends.


	7. Interchapter

_**Interchapter**_

"She destroyed the tablet."

Malachi shrugged. "Don't matter. I figured she would as soon as she stepped aboard. What's important is that she's seen it now. We just have to wait."

He knew Nain – both of them. This Star Gate thing would intrigue them, call to them, until eventually they had to go out and look for it. And they would find it. Alex Nain was a brilliant, ingenious young woman, and Kana Nain was some sort of demi-godlike alien. Between them, they would have no trouble finding the Star Gate.

As soon as they did, he would move in and take it from them. At the same time, he would repay Kana for all the insults she had made to him today.

He didn't really know what a Star Gate was, but it sounded impressive, and had to be worth a bit of money. He was guessing on some sort of portal, perhaps a new way of travelling interplanetary distances. If that were the case, it would be worth an awful lot of money indeed.

He hoped that Nain hurried up and found the thing.

It occurred to him that his first mate hadn't said anything in response to his statement. That was odd. He had expected there to be questions, an explanation required. It wasn't like the man to just trust that his captain had everything under control – although Malachi wished that he would, from time to time.

He turned in his chair.

His first officer was nowhere to be seen. Nor were any of the other members of his bridge staff. Instead, there stood a quiet little man in a neat black suit, his hands patiently clasped behind his back, watching the Cartel man steadily.

"Who the hell are you?"

"That's not your concern. Where is she?"

"Look, buddy…" he started to rise, clenching his fists to use against this little man. This little man who put a hand on his chest and effortlessly pushed him back down into his seat.

"Where is she? She was aboard your ship. I can sense her presence. Her foul soul…it lingers on these bulkheads. So I ask you again, where is she?"

"What are you talking about?"

"The Dictator. Kana."

Malachi was shocked. "Kana Nain? You're after Kana Nain?" Was the man suicidal?

"Kana…Nain?" He frowned, the surname unfamiliar. There was a moment during which he pondered over this, and then he smiled. "She has taken a vessel. Clever. No wonder I haven't been able to find her. You. Tell me what you know about Kana Nain."

"Piss off," replied Malachi. "Look, I don't know who you think you are, but I'm not – gagh!"

The little man's other hand pressed on Malachi's throat, cutting his speech short. That pale face lent into his, and for the first time Malachi really noticed the eyes. A cold sense of dread percolated throughout his body. He knew that, no matter what he said or did, he wasn't going to survive this encounter.

"I have spent millennia hunting down the murderer of our race. My vengeance will not be denied! You will talk, mortal. You will tell me everything that I want to know. I will know what form the Dictator hides in, I will know where to look for her, and I will finally kill her! Now talk, mortal. Tell me what I want to know!"

As he spoke, his human guise slipped away more and more, revealing the creature beneath. Something out of a nightmare; something that made fear tingle in every sinew of Malachi's body, and which his mind could only conceive one description for: evil.

And he screamed. And he kept screaming until the little man broke him, and he told him all that he wanted to know.


	8. Chapter 6

_**Chapter Six**_

"I'm surprised. It's actually quite nice here."

Captain Drake and Doctor Sarn had gone straight to the promenade levels on leaving the _Shadow Wing_. They had spent almost an hour strolling the large, open market space, browsing through various little shops, and now they were sat in a comfortable café, eating a light lunch. He wondered how Alex was doing, but he didn't let himself worry.

Sarn was better company than he had expected. She hadn't objected to window-shopping, she had bough a few things for herself, and she had conversed with him. He had been under the impression that Vulcans didn't engage in idle banter, but Sarn showed him to be wrong about that. As a rule, he liked neither scientists nor Vulcans; scientists were boring, Vulcans were arrogant. Since Sarn was a Vulcan scientist, he had expected to like her about as much as he would like eating glass. When she had first come aboard his ship, he had been fully prepared to dislike her.

She had won him over.

"The Cartel strictly enforces its laws," Sarn replied.

That was true. The not-so-secret owners of Mansfield would not permit any laws to be broken on the upper levels of the station. Above the docking bays, the Federation law book was enforced with the utmost rigour. Down below, where Alex was, was another story, but the habitation sectors were amongst the safest places to live anywhere in the Federation. The Cartel also spent a fair amount of its money in making the habitation decks pleasant-looking places to live, and there was a permanent civilian population aboard the station, who preferred life here to going it rough on one of the new colony worlds.

Sarn had one of her purchases on the table. Drake glanced at it and said, "I still can't believe you bought that."

The Vulcan picked up the yoyo and turned it over. "I expect Alex can show me how to use it."

"Give it here. I had one of these when I was a boy. They were a big thing when I was at school. Now…let's see if I can still remember how to do this…"

It took a couple of attempts for Drake to get the yoyo to go up and down smoothly. On his first, it unwound too fast and ended up spinning round and round at the bottom of its string. Sarn raised an eyebrow, and deep in her eyes Drake could have sworn he saw a flicker of laughter. Second attempt, and he got the yoyo to go up and down a couple of times before loosing control of it.

"This is embarrassing," he muttered as he wound the string again. "I used to be able to do all sorts of tricks with one of these."

"Perhaps Alex can show you how to use it as well," suggested Sarn, a little cheekily the captain thought.

"I just need a little practice."

About ten minutes later, he agreed that he needed Alex to show him how to use the yoyo properly, and put it down.

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Kana was still in control of their body, and enjoying herself. She could sense their friends up on the promenade level and she was making her way up to meet them. This wasn't particularly enjoyable in itself, but she was taking quite a convoluted route in getting there; one that required her to fight her way through the packed docking levels, and positively demanded that she thrust to the floor, stamp on, hit, and generally be physically and verbally abusive to anyone who got in her way. Which was quite a number of people, as it turned out.

She wasn't quite sure what she was going to do when she got back to her friends. She liked Drake and Sarn, although not to the same level that Alex did. She would probably talk to them for a while, and then let Alex take over.

A quiet, little voice called, "Hey."

Kana wondered if Alex would really take them to Risa. Despite what she had said aboard the _Shadow Wing_, she would quite like to visit that pleasure world again. She was pretty sure that she had liked it there last time. Pretty sure, because she couldn't actually remember much of what had happened. When Alex hadn't been partying, getting very drunk, and waking up in strange beds, she had been partying, getting very drunk, and waking up in strange beds. Consequently, neither of them was entirely sure what they had actually done over there.

She had no plans to stay sober or celibate if they went to Risa this time (what was the point of inhabiting a human form, one capable of enjoying all these experiences, if you didn't make full use of it?) so she wouldn't remember much of this visit, either. Which would necessarily demand they took a third trip later. It was a sacrifice Kana felt she could make.

"Hey. Hey, you."

Who the sod was that person talking to? And, for that matter, why wouldn't they just answer? It would shut the kid up!

"I'm talking to you, silly!"

Okay, that sounded suspiciously like it was directed at _her_. Kana turned around to find out who it was who was doing all this shouting, and perhaps shut them up. There was a little girl, wearing a simple aqua dress, her blond hair falling around her shoulders.

"Are you talking to me?"

"Yes, silly."

Kana didn't like being called silly. Dismissively, she snapped, "I don't know you."

"I know you. Both of you."

"What?"

The girl smiled enthusiastically. "She's the host. She's funny and clever, and she loves you. She flies spaceships. And you…you're the Dark Soul. You have lived so long and done so much, but being her other soul…that's your favourite thing."

What the hell? This thought passed through Kana's mind, and, realising that it wasn't doing a lot of good in there, she expressed it aloud, "What the hell?"

"_Did she…? How does she know that stuff about us?"_

"Oh, I know lots and lots of things. I'm Susan."

The two Nains looked at each other. _"Did she hear me?"_ Alex wondered.

"Yes," said Susan.

"It seems that she did."

"_That's impossible, isn't it? Would you like to explain to me how she can hear me?"_

"_Yes. I'd love to."_

"I can hear lots of things. Voices, and thoughts, and feelings, and – "

"You're telepathic?"

"Yes!" Susan clapped and danced excitedly.

Alex looked doubtfully at her second self. _"That's impossible, too, right? Humans can't be telepaths."_

Kana shrugged. _"Maybe. There's a lot of unused potential in the human brain. With a bit of genetic tinkering, it would be possible. Hell, get me a fertilised egg and a few bits from the sickbay and I'll give you a demonstration. Boy or girl?"_

"_That's illegal."_

Modification of the human genome had been illegal since the mid twenty-first century, and the final fall of Khan Noonien Sign and his Augment supermen.

Susan shook her head sadly. "Doesn't matter to some people."

With nothing particularly clever occurring to either of them, the Nains just looked at each other again. _"Okay. This is getting a bit weird."_

"_I'd noticed."_

"_Why can we never go anywhere without weird shit happening to us?"_

"_I assume the higher powers enjoy having a laugh at our expense. Bastards, the lot of them."_

"_You know that for a fact?"_

"_Sure do. I've met most of them. I wouldn't invite them to the pub with us."_

Susan took Kana's hand, startling the woman more than somewhat. She found a pair of pleading blue eyes staring up at her, and that startled her as well. "They're coming. I can sense them. They're near. You have to help us."

"Who is coming? Who are us? And let go of my hand."

Susan ignored the last two commands, but she provided an answer to the first: "Green men. Orions."

"_Oh good,"_ said Alex dryly. _"I love those guys."_

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Where can she be?"

"I don't know. Maybe we should ask someone. They might have seen her."

"No!"

Sarn's ears pricked up at the sounds of an urgent debate: two people, a human male and female, looking for someone else. Judging from the emotion in their voices – particularly the woman's – a child was the object of their search; one of theirs, who had gone missing.

"Doctor?" Said Drake, noticing the shift in his science officer's attention.

"Those people are in distress, Captain."

Although he was on leave, his Starfleet training came to the fore: always answer distress calls. "What kind?"

"It seems that they have lost a child."

The captain was on his way over to them immediately. He studied the couple as they approached. From dozens of small clues in the way they acted towards one another, he worked out that they were friends, not man and wife; still close though, as he and Alex were, but in this relationship the woman definitely looked to the man for strength and guidance. He was a rugged individual, not too dissimilar from Drake himself, although the captain was willing to bet that his leather jacket and combat pants weren't a disguise. He noticed Drake's approach more quickly than the woman, and alerted his female friend. By the time Drake and Sarn had reached them, the two concerned guardians were facing them.

"I'm William Drake," he announced. "My Vulcan friend, Sarn, couldn't help overhearing your predicament."

"It's none of your concern," said the woman, firmly.

"Just trying to help."

"We don't want your help."

"Yes," said the man more gently, "we do. I'm Lance Riker, my friend is Miranda Pauli. You said your Vulcan friend overheard us?"

Sarn nodded. "I did."

"Then you know that Miranda's daughter has disappeared?"

"We do."

"She must have wandered off somewhere while we were looking through the promenade –"

"I told you that was a bad idea!"

"Maybe you've seen her? She's about this tall…blond hair, blue eyes…light blue dress. Human."

Drake shook his head. "I don't think I have."

"I have not," said Sarn.

Lance's and Miranda's spirits drooped. "Well," said Riker, "thanks anyway."

"We'll help you look for her," offered Drake.

"No!" Said Miranda, fear filling her. "No, absolutely not!"

The two Starfleet officers couldn't keep from exchanging glances. That woman was acting very strangely. Who, when they had a missing child to find, didn't want help in searching? Most people would have contacted station security and had a team of deputies sent out. On a Cartel-run station, that might not be the best course of action, but something about her almost paranoid level of worry made Drake suspect that she wouldn't have done so even on one of the starbases. Was it really her daughter that those two were looking for? And if it was, what else were they hiding?

Lance remained calmer and more reasonable than his female companion. "We wouldn't want to put you out."

"It's no trouble."

"Then we'd be glad to have your help. Four pairs of eyes, we've got a better chance of finding her."

"Right," agreed Drake, noticing that Miranda still seemed far from pleased.

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Kana was leading the way, Alex following behind, taking Susan by the hand. Although no Orions had yet appeared, the two Nains were taking the threat very seriously. The Syndicate was ruthless, well-organised, and excessively trained in the art of murder; if they were coming for this child they could strike at any time, from anywhere, and the Nains might get only a split-second's warning. That Syndicate cruiser was in Alex's mind. Docked to the station, hundreds of Orions aboard, any of whom could be working on Susan's contract.

She had no doubt that what the child had told her was true; neither of them did; and she and Kana had silently agreed to get Susan off the station as quickly as they could. There were too many mysteries around this girl to let them go unsolved: who had made her? How? Why? How had she come to be on Mansfield? How had she known to look for them? Why were the Orions after her?

Susan, although quite willing to talk away about nonsensical things, was very unwilling to give the Nains the information they wanted. "You'll like Lance. He's handsome and brave. He loves Miranda, but he won't tell her. He thinks she met someone else. It eats away at him. Miranda would notice, if she wasn't so scared all the time."

"_What is she babbling about?"_

"_Kana! Susan can hear you."_

"_I am fully aware of that."_

"Lance and Miranda," said Susan, apparently not offended in the least by Kana's sour attitude. "They are the ones who rescued me. Miranda brought me to Lance, and Lance brought me to you. And you will save me."

"You…um…you have a lot of faith in us."

"I have known all about you and the Dark Soul forever. I know that you will save us. All of us."

Something ominous in the way that she had said that made Alex check, "You mean Lance and Miranda as well, right?"

"I mean everyone."

"_And what, pray tell, do you mean by that?"_

Susan put a finger to her lips. "Shush. Can't tell you. Not yet. Not for a long time. Things happen in an order. Sometimes, I see them all jumbled up. What will happen before what has happened."

"_You're clairvoyant? You can see into the future?"_

"No. Not really. I see little bits, from time to time. I can't control it. Not like I can the reading." Susan frowned. "You're frightened."

"I'm not."

"Not you. The Dark Soul."

She was right, Kana did look spooked. _"What is it? What's worrying you?"_

"_Let's just say that I don't like the idea of the future being predictable and leave it at that."_

Alex signalled her agreement with a nod. Whatever was really bothering her friend, she would respect her privacy.

The other Nain slunk to the end of the corridor and peered around, checking the joining passageways for signs of an Orion – any Orion. She beckoned the others on, and they turned right, heading towards a cluster of turbolifts. Alex's plan was to get up to the promenade level. No matter how powerful the Syndicate felt itself to be, it wouldn't dare break the peace in a public place. That would lead to a war between the Syndicate and the Cartel, and neither side could be confident of victory; they wouldn't risk it, no matter how important Susan was to them. As soon as she had found her friends, and Susan's, they would all head to the _Shadow Wing_ and run like hell.

The question was, where to run to? Starbase Two would be safe, as would the ship, but both were days away, and Orion hunters flew in much faster ships than her old _Shadow Wing_. She doubted that they could reach Starfleet in time. Where else to go? None of the nearby systems could protect them from the Syndicate, and Alex was loathed to call on anyone else's help anyway. She and Kana could handle everything themselves; they always had. Between the two of them, they could defeat anything. If her friends hadn't been with her now, she could have let Kana take care of this problem.

"_Looking for a solution?"_

"_Yeah. We have to get off the station, but I can't work out where to go after that. Even a couple of Orion Hunters would be more than a match for the _Shadow Wing_, so we can't hope to outfight them. I need a way to turn this around, give us the advantage."_

"_There's always the Graveyard."_

"_Of course!"_

"Graves? Eww."

So, she didn't know everything, Alex was relieved to find. She had never liked the idea of telepathy; that someone else could peer into her most private thoughts. Although she and Kana lived together, neither of them could look into the other's mind. Their thinking was entirely private, unless they chose to share it. They often did, but that was their _choice_. A telepath could look into their minds at will; invade their privacy in the most intimate way. Alex didn't like that at all.

"_Quiet!"_ Kana snapped, tensing. _"Alex, I can sense an Orion, approaching us from that corridor."_

Susan closed her eyes, stretching out with her own extraordinary senses. She nodded. "I sense him, too. He is a hunter. He hasn't heard us."

Alex drew her combat knife and moved silently up to the junction of the corridors, gesturing for Susan to stay back. The girl did as she was instructed, but she was worried, and she looked to Kana. "Shouldn't you…?"

Kana laughed. _"Alex is more than a match for one pitiful Orion."_

Under other circumstance, the human would have made some sort of reply to Kana's comment, some joke about how flattered she was by her other side's kind words, but now she didn't; she was utterly concentrated on herself, her knife, and her victim.

The Orion stepped into view and Alex pounced. She waited until he had stepped just past where she was crouched and then she leapt at him, stabbing with her knife as she did so. The blade buried into the base of the Orion's neck, and Alex's flight pulled it through the flesh, cutting a deep gouge along the back of his neck. She landed as the massive body began to topple backwards, and with brutal speed and accuracy she plunged her knife into his heart, killing him instantly. The body hit the deck and blood pooled around it. Alex wiped her blade clean on the Orion male's flight suit and returned it to its sheath. Susan had crept up as the Orion fell, and now she was desperately looking anywhere but at the body, her face white and tears in her eyes. Her mind-reading powers gave her a great deal of intelligence, but they didn't make her any more grown up than any other eight year old. She had never seen a dead body before, never seen so much blood before, and she just didn't know how to react. Part of her wanted to scream, part wanted to throw up, another part was glad that he was dead, and a final quarter just wanted to shut down totally, curl up into a little ball and hope that everything would go away.

Alex took Susan's hand and manoeuvred her around the corpse. "Don't look at it," she advised. "Try not to think about it. Come on, we need to keep moving."

Kana floated by her side, and said, _"Well done."_

"_Thanks."_

Nothing else impeded their progress to the turbolifts, and Alex hit the button for the main promenade deck. The girl was still in shock, and Alex hugged her to her, trying to calm her down.

"So messy."

"Yes. Death is never clean, Susan. I'm very sorry that you had to see that, but we couldn't let him see us."

The Augment nodded. "I know."

"_You weren't that squeamish around your first kill."_

"_She isn't me."_

Kana shook her head. _"No. I think it's interesting that despite her power she doesn't have your strength. And there I was starting to think that I had found a better host."_

"_No chance."_

The turbolift came to a stop and Alex led Susan out onto the promenade. The busy, lively atmosphere rejuvenated Susan and before long she was skipping at Alex's side, peering into shop windows and laughing. Kana watched her irritably, finding the child's bounding energy tiresome. She was glad that her host never intended to have children; Alex found them as tedious as she did.

"_Kana, where are our friends?"_

"_Follow me. And try and get that child to as well, if you can."_

When calling to Susan didn't work, Alex grabbed her by the hand and pulled her along. The child protested, but Alex was deaf to her.

How many people were enjoying the comforts of the promenade? Fortunately, Kana had placed a red glow around Drake and Sarn, helping her to pick them out from the crowd. She smiled and jogged over to her friends. "Will, Sarn! Having fun?"

Belatedly, she became aware of a man and woman standing with her friends. She smiled at them. "Hi there. Who are you guys?"

"Miranda! Lance!" Susan leapt at them, wrapping her arms around their middles, for that was as high as she could reach.

"Susan!" Cried the woman, lifting her into her arms. "Oh thank God! We didn't know what had happened to you; we were so worried!"

"I found her down in the docking section."

"What were you doing down there?"

"I was looking for her," said Susan, pointing.

"Why? And who are you, anyway?"

"I'm Alex Nain." She offered her hand, but Miranda wouldn't take it, so she shook Lance's hand instead. "I think I can help you guys out."

Miranda stepped away, positioning herself so that her body was between Alex and Susan. "We don't need help. Thank you for finding Susan, and goodbye."

Alex shrugged. "If you think you can deal with the Orions on your own, you're welcome to try."

Drake, Sarn and Lance all looked at her. The captain spoke first, "Orions?"

"Syndicate," said Alex. "They're after Susan."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Miranda claimed.

"Yes, you do. That's why you're so protective of her. You know that someone is out to harm her. Maybe you didn't know it was the Orions, but you do now. We already ran into one of their hunters downstairs."

"She killed him," said Susan.

"Yes. But there are others."

"Over there," Susan said.

They followed her finger, and there were four large Orion men heading in roughly their direction. Whether they had spotted them and were coming for them, or just happened to be walking their way, was undeterminable. The panic their presence ensued in Miranda was almost overwhelming. She looked like she wanted to flee, and only Lance's hand on her shoulder kept her from doing so.

Alex unsheathed her knife. "I'll use this is I have to, but then we'd have two enemies on our hands, and that would be awkward. My ship is on level forty-one. Let's go."

"My ship is on thirty-eight," said Lance Riker, "it's closer."

"My ship's better."

Riker looked at her with a lopsided smile. "You don't even know what my ship is."

"Don't need to. Come on."

"Trust her," Susan pleaded. "Trust her."

Lance already did, and Miranda could tell. She trusted his judgement. "Let's go."

The turbolifts were nearby, and they reached them safely. There was no one waiting for them on the docking level, and Alex led the way onto her ship. As they boarded it Lance looked around, inspecting the craft's design, its construction, and he remarked, "This is an Orion ship."

Miranda backed up, that petrified fright back in her eyes, but Susan spoke before she could let her imagination run too far away. "She stole it years ago. The Syndicate was very angry with her. They hunted her, and she hunted them back, and they fled."

Drake looked at his friend. "What does that mean?"

"Pretty much what she said. Get strapped down, we're leaving."

Drake followed her into the cockpit, while Sarn showed their new passengers to the common room. The captain sat in the copilot seat and waited while Alex activated the ship's systems and warmed it up for flight. He said, "You didn't answer my question."

"Susan's not an ordinary little girl, Will. She's an Augment. Genetically engineered for telepathy. That's how she knows how I got the _Wing_: she read my mind."

The captain's eyes widened. "Jesus."

"Had nothing to do with it," said Alex. "But someone made her, and I'd like to know who. I'd also like to know who set the Syndicate on her, and I'm willing to bet that if I can find the answer to one I'll have the answer to the other."

They received launch clearance, and the _Shadow Wing_ lifted into space. Alex wanted to go straight to warp, but she couldn't do so until the ship had cleared the main traffic lanes around Mansfield – if she tried warping before, the chances were good that she would crash into another starship.

Drake had been thinking about what his friend had told him. "How do you know all this?"

"She told me. And she gave me ample enough proof of her telepathy."

"Okay. Miranda…?"

"I think Miranda knows what Susan is. You've seen how protective she is. My guess is that she had something to do with making her."

"What do you mean?"

"Look at it, Will. Lance obviously has no idea who Susan is or what's going on. I've spent about ten minutes around him and I can see that. Miranda, on the other hand, knows exactly what's happening. Also, Susan is a human Augment. That means that _we_ made her, no one else. My guess is that Miranda was somehow involved, that she found out either what Susan was being made for, or that the project was going to be terminated, and she got the child out of there." She suddenly stopped talking, everything falling into place for her. "Those bastards."

Drake, not for the first time, was left behind by Alex's leaps of logic. "What? Who?"

"I know who made her. I know who created Susan. It was Starfleet!"


	9. Chapter 7

_**Chapter Seven**_

"Starfleet?" Spluttered Drake.

"Probably one of the Intelligence wings. Think about it, Will, how useful would a psychic intelligence agent be? What could we do if we had a few of those? Surgically alter them, send them to infiltrate the Syndicate, the Klingon Empire, the Suliban…what could we achieve?"

"Genetic engineering is illegal, and you know that."

"Sure do. And I know that there are always people who can justify breaking a nation's laws for the good of that nation. Will, our history is _full_ of that sort of thing. Do you really believe that if Intelligence had developed the technology they would let a piddly little thing like the law get in their way? It's just a thought, of course."

The captain shook his head. "Let's hear the rest of your thoughts."

"Okay. Susan's about eight, maybe ten tops, so that means that whatever project created her began back in the pre-Fed Starfleet. Again, that makes sense. Starfleet was new, the galaxy was largely unknown to us, but we'd already encountered hostiles out there. Intelligence probably wanted a way to gather lots of intel, really quickly, using minimal agents. A few psychics like Sue would do the job."

"Logical, as Sarn would say. But why would they suddenly want her dead?"

A light began to flash on the control panel, catching Alex's attention, and she swore loudly. Drake asked urgently, "What?"

"That's telling me that we've been scanned. Give me a second, I'll find out who, although I can guess… Yup, bio-scan from the Orion cruiser. Wankers! Either they're scanning all the ships that leave the station, or they knew to check us specifically. Wankers."

More lights began to flash and Drake wished that he could read the Orion labels on the console. "What do those mean?"

"Those blue ones tell me that we're being targeted, and that pink one means we've got an incoming communication." She pressed the light and an ugly green face appeared on the communications monitor. "What the hell do you want?"

"Cut your engines and prepare to be boarded."

Alex stuck up her middle finger. "Swivel on it."

The Orion showed his broken, yellowed teeth. "Nain. For once, don't be a fool. You can't run and you can't fight. Surrender."

"Do I know you?"

"I know you, that's all that matters."

Alex smiled one of her most irksome smiles; one of the ones guaranteed to annoy whoever it was that she was smiling at. "You know _of_ me. You don't _know_ me. Critical difference."

The Orion looked peeved. "Cut your engines or we will destroy you."

"Give it your best shot, you bastard."

She found Drake looking at her. "Was it really a good idea to insult him?"

She shrugged. "He was going to kill us anyway. I like to swear at people."

"I know."

"Don't worry. He won't fire on us until we're clear of the station. So long as we go to warp before he shoots us, we'll be okay."

"And then?"

"Well, I imagine that half a dozen Orion Hunters will pursue us until we – or they – die. Unfortunately, Hunters are amongst the fastest ships in the galaxy, so pegging it isn't an option."

"Pegging it?"

"Pegging – rhymes with legging, doesn't it? Cockney Rhyming Slang. It means running away. Luckily for us, though, I know a bit more than some slang terms. I've got a plan. We just have to get away from Mansfield and we'll be okay."

"Good," said Drake, trusting her completely. "Go back to what you were saying about Susan. Why do you think her creators decided to have her destroyed?"

"I guess it has something to do with the Federation. When all the old military branches – the Andorian Imperial Guard, Vulcan Expeditionary Service, whatever – got incorporated into the modern Starfleet, all their secret files got added to one big pool. Somewhere in there, for anyone to see, would be data on Susan. Imagine what would happen if the other races discovered we'd been trying to breed telepaths. So, to protect the new Federation, there was a cover up. I guarantee it."

"And killing Susan is part of that cover up?"

"It's the only way to guarantee that no one ever finds out. Destroy the paper work, silence the witnesses. Reminding them of their military duty, or bribes could silence most people. I bet some were killed, though. And, of course, Susan couldn't be allowed to live. She was born telepathic, so she doesn't know how not to use her abilities. One slip of the tongue, so easily done, and it would all be out in the open. I can get why those people would have decided to kill her."

Drake was horrified. "You approve?"

"No! No. And if I ever meet them, I'll bash their brains out against the floor, and you know I'm not joking, Will. But I can understand their thinking."

Drake knew what his friend was feeling. If she was right, and he ever met the people responsible for Susan, he would want to hurt them as well. He wouldn't go so far as to kill them, but he could be sure that he would rough them up a bit before handing them over to the police.

He also knew that his friend wasn't exaggerating: if she met those people, she would murder them. She was perfectly capable of such darkness, and he knew it.

He got to his feet and moved over to the _Shadow Wing's_ small weapons console. The ship was minimally armed, but if one of those Hunters managed to intercept them before they escaped to warp, he wanted to be able to shoot back, however ineffectually.

"Hold on," said Alex, reaching for the helm controls, "we're about to clear the shipping lanes."

A moment later, they did, and two things happened at once: the Orion cruiser opened fire, and the _Shadow Wing_ leapt to warp. Fortunately, phase energy beams are restricted to relativistic speeds, and even travelling at just over warp one point one, the _Shadow Wing_ was moving much too fast to be struck by them.

"Good timing," approved Drake.

"Thanks."

"Now what?"

Alex was darting her fingers over the navigation panels, inputting new coordinates into the computer. "They'll track our entry into warp and set out in pursuit, but it'll take them even longer to clear the shipping lanes than it took us, so we'll have a head start. That's good. I'm going to keep going for an hour maybe, then launch a decoy – basically a probe with a warp engine and a subspace transmitter – and have it carry along this course; with a bit of luck, they'll think it's us. Meanwhile, we come out of warp and change course."

"Where are we going?"

"No matter how fast we run and how many tricks we play, the Orions are faster. We can't reach Starfleet, so we're on our own. In that case, we have to fight, and we're going to fight on _my_ terms."

"Do you want to fill me in a bit?"

"I know a place where we'll have all of the advantages. I call it the Graveyard. It's the remnants of a space battle that was fought thousands of years ago. It's in an empty sector of space; no one knows it's there but me. No one knows what sort of treasures there are there, or what sort of traps. That's where we'll kill the Orions."

"You mean escape?"

"I mean kill," Alex said coldly. "As long as they're alive they'll keep coming for us. Them or us, and I won't let it be us."

Drake nodded. "How far is this Graveyard?"

"About nine hours at maximum warp."

"Good. Then, in the mean time, I'll have a word with Miranda."

He started to get up, but Alex grabbed his wrist. "Don't, Will."

"We need to know the truth."

"Yeah, but…just be tactful, okay? I really think Lance doesn't know anything about this, and I think it would upset him. If you're going to make Miranda talk, get her alone. Or you could try pumping Susan for information."

He shook his head firmly. "Absolutely not. If she's telepathic as you say, I don't want her anywhere near me."

Alex couldn't help smiling at that. "She probably already knows that."

"Probably," agreed Drake. He sighed. "Even after we've finished this and got Susan back to the ship, what are we going to do with her? She's an Augment. Her very existence is against the law."

"What do you suggest? That we kill her?"

"Of course not! But there is a reason why Augments were banned. With superior abilities comes superior ego."

Alex nodded. "That's human nature, unfortunately. But don't forget, how a child is raised plays an important part in who they grow up into. Take a child and tell him he's stupid, he'll always believe it, no matter what he achieves in life. Tell a child that he's infinitely superior to everyone around him in every way, and you've got Khan Noonien Sign. With the right environment, Susan will grow up okay."

"I believe you. But what is the right environment? You know that Dr Soong tried the same thing, and you know how that turned out."

"Yeah. But he did the same thing: he told his bunch of Augments that they were better than humanity, and that regular people were scared of them. But I really think we can do well by Susan. The ship's probably the best place to bring her up."

"Because she'll be able to see the best that humanity – the Federation, even – has to offer. People working together to solve their problems, trying to build a better future."

"Actually, I was thinking we can keep an eye on her there and no one can get at her, but your idea's good, too," she smiled.

He laughed, and after that they were silent for almost an hour while the ship continued on its way. Alex produced a pack of cards and they played a couple of hands of pontoon, before their fun was cut short by an alarm ringing on Alex's control console. She looked at the bank of flashing lights and swore.

"What is it?"

"Pursuit. Shit, damn and hell, I didn't think they'd be able to track us so easily."

"What about your decoy?"

"Haven't launched it yet: we're not ready to change course. We'll have to see if they go for it. If they do, it'll buy us more time. Still, we're far enough ahead that even if they ignore the decoy, we'll still make it."

I hope.

"I thought this was a stealth ship?"

"An _Orion_ stealth ship. They built its stealth tech, they know how to see through it."

"That's not good."

"Not a problem," Alex reassured. "We're close enough to the Graveyard that they can't catch us in time."

Drake hoped that his friend was right. He knew how fast Orion Hunters were. If those ships were on an intercept course, they might not have the nine hours Alex had said it would take to reach the Graveyard.

"You should probably warn our passengers about the Orions," Alex suggested. "And try not to upset Susan. She's gone through a lot recently."

"I'll try not to," the captain promised her. "But if she can read my mind…"

"Think happy thoughts, Will," smiled Alex. "Like I do."

"_Oh please. Your thinking is often either dark or dirty."_

"_Makes me happy,"_ Alex pointed out. _"You've been quiet this last little while. Something on your mind?"_

"_As a matter of fact. Even if we reach the Graveyard you can't be sure what you need will be there. Those hulks are thousands of years old. We were lucky to find anything working."_

"_But we spent ages tinkering with them. We got that scout ship fully functional again, remember?"_

"_Ah, yes I do, now that you mention it. Remind me why we didn't ditch this craft in favour of that one. A co-axial warp ship would have been so helpful on several occasions that I can remember."_

Alex bobbed her shoulders. _"Yeah, but no one around here has a co-axial ship, do they? How much would we mess up the local galaxy if we introduced them to a technology they haven't even dreamed of yet?"_

"_So it had nothing to do with you not being able to fly it properly, then?"_

Alex took her ship out of warp, launched the decoy probe, and immediately leapt back to maximum speed, now on a course for the Graveyard. With any luck the Orions hadn't noticed that quick manoeuvre, and with even more luck they would go after the probe.

Answering Kana's question, she said,_ "Nothing at all."_

"_Didn't think so. Going back to what I was saying, the Graveyard ships were things of tremendous power in their heyday, but they were all badly battered in battle, and have been decaying in space for centuries. Yes, we were able to restore some key systems on one or two of the derelicts, but we could never get any of the starships to fly again. That's why we gave up there."_

"_I remember. It was really frustrating."_

"_Yes, it was. Are you sure that those crippled hulks will be able to deal with our problem?"_

"_Sure. We got the point defence turrets of that cruiser working, didn't we? Those are powerful enough to swat the Hunters. If they somehow get through the flak and board us, there were working particle guns in that ship's armoury."_

Kana's face lit up. _"Particle guns! I can't believe I had nearly forgotten about those. Clearly, you have the better memory of the two of us."_

"_Well, you've got a few million years' worth of memories in that pretty head. Must be hard to keep track of them all some times."_

"_Yes. I'm sure I've forgotten a lot of my past." _What she didn't say was that she was glad to be rid of it. What she could remember of her life before meeting Alex, particularly of those days so long ago when she had lived amongst her own kind, she was not proud of. _"I blame you for that."_

"_Me? Why?"_

"_You introduced me to alcohol."_

"_Oh yeah." _Alex laughed. _"Fair enough, then. Speaking of, I'm pretty thirsty. Do you think we should stop by the mess hall?"_

"_Oh that would be a marvellous idea. You could gross out our guests with your belching."_

Alex ignored her comment and headed for the mess hall. Somewhere behind them, the Orions were in hot pursuit and gaining ground, but there was nothing she could do about that. Warp flight was just flying very fast in a straight line, evasive manoeuvres at warp speed were an impossibility; and even if they were possible, each deviation from course would just make it take longer to reach the safety of the Graveyard. Until they dropped to impulse, either because they had reached their destination or the Orions had shot out their engines, there was no need for her presence in the cockpit.

A couple of beers would help her relax. She had a feeling that, after this was all over, she would need a couple more.


	10. Chapter 8

_**Chapter Eight**_

"Orions?" Squeaked Miranda. "How far?"

"Far enough."

"That's no answer. Why won't you give me a real answer?"

Drake wished they were aboard the _Endeavour_, where he was captain and could just issue orders and not have them debated. Military structure made things so much simpler. "We're nine hours from our destination. Alex assures me that the Orions won't catch us before then."

"Mr Drake," said Riker, "I know this area of space pretty well, and there isn't any system or station within nine hours of Mansfield."

"Where are you taking us?"

Susan was sitting next to Sarn on the common room's long, comfortable couch. She was playing with the Vulcan's yoyo, although she was even more inept with it than Drake – she couldn't even get it to go up and down. Winding the string back up again, she answered for the captain, "To the Graveyard."

Miranda focused on the child and asked her, "Graveyard? What graveyard? Do you mean they're going to get us killed?"

Sarn raised an eyebrow, completely baffled by what was being said around her.

Susan shook her head. "Alex will save us."

"Alex? She's been nothing but trouble since we met her. You're sure?"

"Yes."

"Captain?" Sarn asked, hoping that he could explain to her why an adult woman was taking advice from an eight year old girl, and how that girl seemed to know more about what was happening aboard ship than she did.

"Captain?" Frowned Lance. "I though Nain was the captain?"

Susan laughed. "Alex is a lieutenant."

Miranda's eyes widened. "Lieutenant? Captain? You're Starfleet!"

"Yup. He's Captain William Leonard Drake, she is Doctor Sarn, and she is Lieutenant Alexandra Nain."

"They're Starfleet?" Repeated Miranda, horror-struck. "Susan! Why didn't you tell me? We…we have to…"

She was suddenly the centre of attention, Lance, Drake and Sarn all staring at her, all silently demanding that she explain herself. She fidgeted and took a step towards the door, contemplating running – although where she hoped to go aboard such a small ship was anyone's guess.

"Tell them the truth," Susan begged her, more aware of Miranda's thinking than anyone else. "They're nice people. They'll understand."

"It's not that simple!"

Captain Drake spoke: "Susan's an Augment. The people who created her want to destroy her, and you're trying to keep her alive. And I'd go further to say, judging from your reaction to our profession, that it was Starfleet that made Susan."

Miranda seemed to crumple before him. Everything had gone completely out of control for her, and she was finally giving up. "How did you…?"

He smiled. "Normally I'd claim that I'm this century's Sherlock Holmes, but since Susan can read my mind I should probably be honest: Alex worked it out."

"So she did," agreed Kana, walking into the room with her hands in her pockets. "She can be quite clever sometimes. I seem to recall advising you not to mention any of this just yet, Will, but obviously that got ignored. Oh look, a new yoyo!" She bound across the room and snatched the toy from Susan, who didn't protest, knowing how much Kana enjoyed playing with such things.

"It just came up," said Drake, not liking her accusing tone of voice.

"Of course. Well, since we're talking about this, how about we get the full story? Hmm, Miranda? Want to fill us in?"

"I…"

"Please don't protest innocence. You're somehow involved in this 'person's' existence, and I know it. So save us both some time and fill me in. What was your job? Genetic engineer? Hair stylist? What?"

Lance stood up for his friend. "I don't know what you're talking about, but you'd better stop accusing her of things she can't have done! Miranda isn't a geneticist! She's a psychiatrist."

"Really?" Kana's eyes twinkled. "So that's it. They hired you to keep an eye on Susan. Make sure that her telepathy works, that her mind is stable, and that she doesn't have any plans for world domination. Sensible. And then, when your employees decided to end their project, you'd become so attached to little Susan that you risked everything to save her. Am I right?"

Tearfully, Miranda nodded.

Kana placed her hand on the woman's shoulder. "I'm impressed. Doubly so, in fact. Being willing to sacrifice yourself for another, and getting this far against some formidable odds. That's a very good achievement. Now, it's time to let someone else finish the job."

"You mean you?"

The second Nain smiled. "Yes."

"You're pretty full of yourself."

Susan chuckled. "She has every right to be."

"I love to have people on my side."

"No you don't."

"I'm not that fond of telepaths, mind," she warned.

Lance was more shocked than anyone to hear all of this – he had honestly had no idea what his friend had been involved in. "You told me you were working for Starfleet! Not this…this is illegal."

"I was working for Starfleet!" She protested. "A section of Starfleet Intelligence. She's right, Susan was a project. The Beta Intelligence Development Project. She's officially Beta-Two, the revised prototype. I…please don't ask me what happened to Beta-One. I wasn't involved in the project then. They…they called me in after they'd created Susan. Like Nain said, I was to monitor her mental health, nothing else. I wasn't even officially told what they were creating her for."

"_If Susan's the Beta IDP, I wonder what the Alpha one was."_

"_Or the Gamma,"_ said Kana.

Riker was still trying to get his head around what he was hearing. "What…? What were you involved in, Miranda? How could you be a part of that?"

"Someone had to take care of her," Miranda defended. "If I hadn't, they would have hired someone else, and I couldn't be sure my replacement would care about her like I do. Did…did you know…no one else on the project even named her! She was just Beta-Two, or BIDP. I gave her a real name; I treated her like a human being. I couldn't abandon her. Don't you see that?"

Lance wrapped his arm around Miranda's shoulder and hugged her supportively. "I'm sorry."

"I couldn't leave her. When I heard what they were planning…they were going to kill her! Lance, I'm so sorry that I got you involved in this, but I didn't know who else to turn to. She's like a daughter to me."

"I know," he soothed. But there was still anger churning up in him and he had to turn it on someone. "And you, Captain. What is your involvement in all this? What part did you play?"

"Nothing. I didn't know any of this until just now."

Drake would have made an excellent politician; when he spoke, people believed him. Unable to question the captain's veracity, Lance turned his ire on Kana instead. "You then, Nain. You seem to know so much about all this. How?"

"I'm a genius."

"You work for Starfleet. How do we know you weren't involved in this?"

"Oh please," spat Kana. "If I was working for BIDP I could have killed you all by now and achieved their objective for them. It would have been a simple matter to cut off life support from the cockpit. Notice that you're still alive, so I think you can take that to mean I'm not one of the bad guys. Besides, Susan can see into my thoughts. She could tell you if I'm someone to worry about."

"She isn't," Susan immediately told him.

"There, you see? No one on this ship approves of what Intelligence did. None of us are going to let them harm Susan or Miranda. If you'll just have a little faith in me, Lance, everything will turn out fine." She managed to make that sound like a threat, like the only way things could go wrong was if he didn't believe in her. He closed his lips, but he still glared at her. She didn't mind in the slightest; she was used to people being irked with her.

Kana tossed the yoyo back to Sarn and stuck her hands into her pockets. "We will reach the Graveyard in about nine hours, as you know. I suggest you all get some rest before then. Will and Sarn can show you to the cabins."

"What about you?" Asked Drake.

"I'll entertain myself in the cockpit; please don't ask how."

That got a few smiles, while Susan made an 'eww' face, but they didn't last. Kana walked out, swapping places with Alex as she went. The human paused briefly in the doorway and looked back, seeing a lot of tense, confused faces; particularly Miranda and Lance – their whole relationship had just been shaken to its foundations. She felt terrible for them.

She also felt that she and Will could end up in a position very much like that if she ever told him about Kana. One more reason to never do so.

"_I think it's going to be a long night," _she remarked, and then a thought came to her. _"Hey, I never got that beer I was coming down here for."_

She went back into the common room, collected half a dozen cans, and took them with her to the bridge. She figured that she had an awful lot of relaxing to do.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Lance?"

"Miranda. May I come in?"

It had been five hours since the revelations in the common room. The Starfleet captain and science officer were in their rooms, Nain was keeping an eye on things in the cockpit, and Susan was sleeping peacefully on the bed. Miranda had been napping in the cabin's small chair when the doorbell had woken her.

"Of course, of course." She stepped aside. "Just…shush. She's sleeping."

Lance looked at the slumbering Augment. She looked so peaceful, so harmless, and so _normal_. It was hard to believe that she wasn't human, not really. She had the power to read minds! How many people had dreamed of having that ability at one time or another, and here was someone who did. She seemed so small and helpless, but she had that hidden power. It made her incalculably dangerous. No secret could be kept from her. And what if…what if as well as plucking thoughts out of minds she could put thoughts _into_ minds? Surely a strong enough telepath could do that? It stood to reason, didn't it?

What did they create? He asked himself. And why? Why? Augments and humans can't coexist. We know that. Oh, Miranda, how could you be a part of this?

"She's so beautiful, isn't she?" Whispered Miranda.

Lance couldn't argue with that; Susan was a pretty child, both physically and spiritually. That wasn't the problem. It was _what_ she was that concerned him. "Wonderful."

Miranda seemed to know what he was thinking. Maybe he wasn't as subtle as he thought he was. "It's okay. She can't read our minds in her sleep; it's an entirely conscious ability."

"How do you know that?"

"Tests. Research. I spent years working with her. I watched her grow from a bewildered little girl into who she is now. I'm so proud of her."

"You're very attached to her."

Miranda nodded. "She's my daughter."

"Your…?"

"Not biologically. But in every way that counts. I've been her mother, and she's been my little girl. That's why I couldn't let them hurt her, Lance. Apart from everything else, I just couldn't let them hurt my little girl."

"I understand."

She looked at him sadly. "But you don't approve?"

"She's beautiful, and she's a lovely girl. But I don't like what she is."

"A telepath?"

"An Augment."

Miranda sighed. "That's become such a dirty word, hasn't it? When people say Augment they always mean Khan. It just means changed."

"Usually for the worse." He realised what he had said and sighed. "I'm sorry, Miranda, I didn't mean it like that. Susan's lovely."

"But you're sacred of her?"

He chuckled. "Tell you the truth, I'm more scared of Nain right now. She was acting strangely earlier."

"I know what you mean. I asked Susan about that. She just laughed and said not to worry about it."

"And that worries you?"

Miranda nodded. "She's being very secretive about Nain. As soon as we got to Mansfield she went off to find her, like she was expecting her. But she never mentioned Nain to me. And now she won't talk about her at all."

"I wonder what that's about."

She shrugged. "I don't know. I'm sure it's not important." She looked at the sleeping child for a while longer and smiled. "She's so beautiful. Lance, I'm so grateful to you for everything you did for us. Not everyone would have been so good to us."

He didn't know what to say to that, and settled on the old cliché, "What are friends for?"

"You know," continued Miranda after a bit of a pause, "I've always thought of myself as Susan's mother, I've said that. But she also needs a father, and…well…I always hoped that it could be…you."

Lance was caught completely off guard. "I…um…"

"Think about it."

He took her hands and kissed them gently. "I don't need to."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_From the tumbled cacophony of my dreams – it's such a strange place in here – emerges a kind of order; a flat stretch of ground in the swirling vortex of impossible dreams and chaotic thoughts. I land on it, my plunge through the horrors of unconsciousness paused. I pick myself up and look around, surprised to see that there is another figure now in this whirlwind of the mind. She stands watching me with her hands in her pockets, the twisting wind pulling at her long cloak and her spiky hair._

_How has she come to this place? The inner sanctum of my mind. Even I rarely venture in here, only when sleep forces me to. There's so much information in my head. More and more and more than anyone ever expected: The scientists who built me, all of their secrets, all of their schemes, all in here; all the knowledge of their little section of Starfleet Intelligence; and that's just for starters. There are other things in my head, things that even I don't know how they came to be here. Like how I knew who the Nains were, and where to look for them. I've always known, but never known how._

_It is one of the Nains who faces me now. I recognise her as Kana. She looks a bit different to how I see her in Alex's mind. This Kana wears a more elaborate costume than her regular self. It is still fundamentally the same, tight crimson trousers and a vest, a cloak over the top, but these clothes are leather instead of cloth, the trimming is real gold, an elaborate chain hangs around her neck, and gold rings and bracelets decorate her fingers and wrists._

_I have seen her dressed like this before, in her memories. I wonder what the appearance of this Kana, in her old robes of office, means._

_And if she is truly the diabolical Kana from the past, I wonder how I can escape._

_She smiles at me and a harsh chuckle carries from her lips. "Hello, Susan. You seem so surprised to see me."_

"_How did you get in? Where did you come from?"_

"_When you intruded into my mind earlier I was able to use your own telepathic connection to sneak part of me into you. I've been waiting for you."_

"_Waiting?"_

"_Yes. Don't worry; I haven't been probing your deepest, darkest secrets. I have enough of my own without having to worry about other peoples'."_

"_Yes, I know."_

_The phantom Kana wags a finger. "That's actually what I'm here to talk about. I don't like your habit of prying into other peoples' minds. Well, I'll be more specific, I don't like you peering into _our_ minds: Alex's and mine. We each have secrets that we don't want anyone to know."_

"_Everyone does," I say._

"_Few have secrets like ours. Now, I am not debating this with you, Susan. You will stay out of our head. If you try to read either one of us, I will know. And the next mini-me I put into you won't be here to have a pleasant chat. Clear?"_

_I know that Kana does not make idle threats. I know that even a mental copy of her will be astonishingly dangerous. I push down my fear and acknowledge, "Yes."_

"_Good. So long as you respect our privacy, Susan, there is no reason why we shouldn't have a terrific relationship."_

_Kana and the floor beneath me disappear and I plunge back into the nightmare of sleep._

_I miss her already._


	11. Chapter 9

_**Chapter Nine**_

"No. Like this. See? Try it. That's it. Now, when the yoyo is spinning at the end of its string like that we say it's 'asleep'. If you put the 'sleeping' yoyo against a flat surface, like so, see how it rolls along? That's called 'walking the dog', one of the simplest tricks. Now, Sarn, you try it."

"_I've lived for eons, and this is the first time I've ever given anyone a yoyo lesson,"_ remarked a grinning Kana.

The Vulcan was an adept pupil, and Kana was enjoying playing tutor. They were both in the cockpit, the stars hurtling by outside. Sarn didn't need to sleep as often as her human crewmates did, and Alex had given control of her body over to Kana before napping for a couple of hours, leaving her feeling refreshed and ready to tackle the Orion threat.

"I'm curious as to why you bought that little toy, Sarn. Isn't fun illogical? A human weakness?"

"You claimed to find this relaxing. An aid to clearing your mind. I am simply testing your theory."

"I see. And what have you decided?"

Sarn drew the yoyo back up its string and caught it at the height of its rise. "I am still gathering data."

"I see."

It was about more than one thing that Sarn was gathering her information. The ancient statue of the two Alex Nains was still firmly in her mind. Even before she had seen that statue she had observed that there seemed to be two sides to the helmsman. There was the regular Alex, happy and energetic, and then there was a darker, more serious Alex. The two were quite different in how they behaved and spoke, even their voices changed. They were more different than a simple change in mood could account for, but until she had seen the statue Sarn had allowed herself to be convinced that that was all it was. Now, she studied her shipmate more closely, and she was starting to think of Nain as two different people: Alex and Dark Alex.

Right now, she was most assuredly in the company of Dark Alex.

Lights started to flash on the flight console. Alex's yoyo shot out of control and she swore as she hastily balled up the string and struggled to remove the toy from her finger. Sarn watched closely. This was the regular Alex back again, the wide, cheerful eyes were all the proof that she needed of that.

She found it interesting that Dark Alex was such an expert with a yoyo, and yet Alex herself was incompetent with it. What could account for that?

Alex dropped the yoyo onto the vacant engineering position chair and took the helm. Sarn stood over her shoulder and asked, "What is happening?"

"Those alarms mean we're approaching our destination. We'll come out of warp in a few minutes. Hang on, I want to check on the Orions." She pressed a few buttons and a new graphic appeared on one of her monitors. She grinned broadly. "Excellent! Looks like they fell for my decoy. They're several hours behind us. That'll give us more time to set up our trap."

"I am interested to see what kind of trap you hope to make from a collection of derelicts, Alex."

"Then stay up here and watch closely," smiled Alex. "I think you'll find it fascinating. In fact, we might as well all be gathered up here. I'll have to tell everyone the plan at some point. It might as well be now." She pressed the comm. "Everyone, get up to the cockpit. Quick as you can."

Drake arrived almost immediately, while the three civilians took a while longer, and Susan came in rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Alex smiled at them all and said good morning, before outlining the situation. "We're about five minutes from the Graveyard. The Orions are hours behind us, which will give us plenty of time to prepare. This region is the remains of an ancient space battle, fought by starships hundreds of times more powerful than the _Endeavour_. Now, damage and time has pretty much ruined these ships, but there is one, a destroyer, that is still partially operational. My plan is to land on that ship, activate its weapons systems, and use them to wipe out the Orions."

"Risky plan," said Drake. "If the destroyer has suffered more damage than you think we could be in trouble."

"If only one of its point defence turrets works that'll still be more than enough to take out four Orion Hunters. Trust me, Will, you don't know how tough these old juggernauts were. But…you're about to see for yourself. Hold on, we're coming out of warp."

There was a slight lurch as the craft decelerated, and Alex apologised for not maintaining her inertial dampeners as well as she should. No one listened to her, though; they were all too busy staring at the forward view screens and out of the windows.

Hunks of debris the size of the _Starship Endeavour_ turned slowly above and below them; the ruined remnants of a ship that had once dwarfed Mansfield station floated to starboard, so close and so massive that all they could see was a great wall of dark metal. This part of space was light years from any active star, and the only light came from the _Shadow Wing_'s lanterns. The beams played across the rubble and the husks, plucking out tiny bits of detail against the sides of the immense ships.

"You weren't kidding about these things," said Lance.

"Nope. That really big thing on our right is a carrier. It had tens of thousands of fighters and corvettes in its bays; it even carried a small fleet of frigates docked to its outer hull. But even that thing's small potatoes compared to the two flagships."

"How big were they?" Drake asked.

"Each flagship carried two carriers."

Both Drake and Lance muttered something that Susan really shouldn't have heard.

"The ship we're heading for is a little smaller," Alex continued chirpily, steering her ship through the Graveyard. "It was a light destroyer. From what I've been able to work out, it was pounded by wave after wave of bombers from that carrier we've just passed. The destroyer captain wasn't as smart as you, Will; he got too close to a superior enemy and didn't have any backup. He got wasted, and not the good kind that involves booze."

A few minutes later, the destroyer came into view. Sarn could see what Alex meant about it having taken a pounding; most of the ship's hull had been blasted away, leaving just the blackened and warped superstructure. There was only a small intact section left, around an auxiliary control centre according to Alex. Small was a relative term with vessels of this size, of course – the surviving section was almost the size of the _Endeavour_'s spherical hull.

"That thing's a wreck!" Exclaimed Lance. "It's even more broken than the other ones we've passed. There's no way you can get that working."

"I already have."

"Huh?"

"Years ago. I found this place long, long ago, before I even met you, Will. I spent months crawling through these derelicts, scavenging what I could, trying to get one of them to work again. This destroyer was the easiest to fix up. Its engine core and primary computer were largely undamaged. A bit of rewiring, some spare parts, and I got a few systems back online."

Drake looked doubtful as well. "You're sure it wasn't a different destroyer?"

"You'll see when we land. Oh, which reminds me; I powered down the ship before I abandoned it last time, so there won't be any atmosphere over there. We'll have to go aboard in space suits."

"Do you have a child's suit for Susan?" Asked Miranda, not without sarcasm.

"Nope. Okay, here's what we'll do: Will and I will go aboard in suits. We'll power up the ship and restore life support. Then the rest of you can beam over using the _Wing'_s transporter."

"The transporter?"

"It's perfectly safe."

"Says the person not using it," remarked Lance.

Alex chuckled, but it was more because of the rather inappropriate comment that Kana had just made than it was out of patience with Riker. She didn't like having her plans questioned. From Kana or Will, or even Sarn, she would be tolerant, but no one else had the right.

The _Shadow Wing_ ducked in through one of the hull breaches and berthed in what had once been an ammunition storage bay. There were still hundreds of ancient torpedoes loaded on racks, but most of the ordinance had long since floated out into space. Alex secured her ship with a low-power tractor beam and shut down the engines.

A few minutes later, two spacesuited figures floated out of the ship's starboard airlock. Alex led the way, using little taps from her suit's thrusters to ease her in the direction of the bay's door. It was locked down and sealed, but she had opened it before, the last time that she had visited this derelict. She removed a panel next to the door and played with something behind it; the locks silently popped out of place, and with Drake's help she was able to force the door open. They resealed it behind them.

"How far to the control room?" Asked Drake, who was thinking of the Orions. They were still hours away, but that was far too close for his liking. No matter what Alex said, he couldn't believe this ruined starship would ever pressurise again, let alone fight again.

"It's at the end of this corridor." She floated down the gravity-less passageway, pushing against the walls to propel herself forward. Drake was impressed by her easy way in zero gravity. The last time he had experienced free fall had been during his Starfleet training, many years ago now. He was pleased that he remembered enough not to embarrass himself.

The destroyer's auxiliary control centre was as large as the _Endeavour_'s bridge, but far more cramped. Its consoles were arranged in rows, rather than built into the walls as the Federation ship's were, and the rows were as tightly packed as possible. At first the captain assumed that this meant these aliens hadn't had as efficient control methods as Starfleet, but then he realised that a ship as big and complex as this one would be exponentially more difficult to look after than his comparatively puny _Endeavour_.

Alex stopped herself above the only workstation that still had any power. Its screens were inactive, but the lights beneath its vast bank of buttons glowed softly. Drake couldn't read the characters painted onto the controls, and doubted that the universal translator would make any sense of them either, but after taking a moment to refamiliarise herself with the layout, Alex began to tap away rapidly, as easily as he might use a conventional QWERTY keyboard.

"This is the environmental control station. When I abandoned the ship last time I shut everything else down, and I put this console on standby. If none of the circuits have been damaged we should be able to…yes!"

The ship rumbled as it came back to life, generators that had been ticking over on idle ramping up to full power, lights flickered on throughout the ship, followed by gravity and life support. After a few minutes, Alex unsealed and removed her helmet. Drake followed suit. The air was dry and stale, but breathable.

"We're very lucky. The auxiliary life support tanks weren't damaged in the attack, but over the centuries their contents have slowly evaporated into space. A few more decades and they'll be completely empty. For now, there's enough air in the tanks to make this part of the ship habitable."

"What about the rest of the systems?"

"Let me check." She moved around to another console and spent a few moments studying the complex graphics on its screen. "Hmm…looks like the ship collided with a piece of debris since I was last here. Half of the gun banks have been wrecked. Still, there are still enough guns to cover us. Ah, now here's a bit of luck."

"What?"

"There are still some combat drones in the bay. They mustn't have had the chance to launch them all before they got knocked out of the old battle. If those still work they'll be a godsend to us. Okay, I'll check the drone bays if you'll organise getting the others over here. Tell them to beam over with as many weapons and as much food and medicine as they can carry."

"Why food?"

"Well, if any of the Orions get close enough they might torpedo the _Wing_ to keep us from escaping. If that happens we'll have to sit around and wait for the _Endeavour_ to pick us up."

"Good thought." He pressed his suit's comm and began to relay instructions to Sarn, while Alex slipped out of the control room and headed for the drone bay. Halfway down the corridor, she paused to strip out of her bulky spacesuit, which was impeding her movement horrible. Beneath it she wore only her underwear, but the ship's life support had already raised the ambient temperature to comfortable levels, and Alex had never been overburdened with modesty. Half naked, she descended through the ship's network of inter-level ladders until she reached the drone bay.

The destroyer's drones were each the size of a Starfleet shuttle, fitted with impulse engines, multiple gun ports and strong armour plating. They were designed to protect their base ship against fighter and bomber assault. As this ruin demonstrated, they weren't always sufficient.

"_Are they functional, Kana?"_

Her friend floated through each drone in turn, inspecting them with her inhuman senses. She returned to Alex and folded her arms. _"Two of them are wreckage. The others are fully operational."_

"_Wicked. Five fighter drones. Let's get these things launched, shall we?"_

"_I think that would be a good idea, yes."_

The launch tube was blocked, but Kana was able to clear it and they deployed the drones. Alex input the sensor signatures of the Orion ships as their targets, silently prayed that they wouldn't accidentally identify the _Shadow Wing_ as a threat, and had them assume positions around the destroyer and then go into standby mode until they received a signal to activate. She would let the Hunters close with them, then turn on the drones when they were at point blank range.

When she returned to the control room the others were all present. She found Drake and Lance out in the corridor, building barricades from which they could shelter behind and fire at the Orions when they boarded. The women were in the control room. Sarn was studying the alien controls, while Miranda and Susan stood off to one side.

"This ship is fascinating," said Sarn. "After centuries in the void it should be destroyed."

"It was built to last."

"Evidently. Where does it get its power? It cannot run off conventional energy sources. Antimatter would have degraded into regular matter after such a long period of time."

"There's a quantum singularity at the heart of the engine core. Good for tens of thousands of years."

"Fascinating."

"Yeah, it is. Sarn, I'd love to tell you all about this thing. Later. After we're all safe."

"Of course. Proceed."

"I've set up a drone screen," Alex told them all, Drake and Lance having followed her in. "Here's my plan: when the Orions arrive we'll play dead at first, to draw them in. Once they're within our optimum range – which is actually pretty short – we'll open up with the ship's turrets. If that doesn't convince them to back off, or blow them up, the drones are our second line of defence; they'll activate as soon as the Hunters get close enough. Should the Orions get past all of that lot, we'll be down to fighting them here, on the ship. Where we landed the _Wing_ is the only place they can board. I've activated the ship's internal force fields, that will prevent them from beaming on board, but it won't stop them from physically invading. Will and Lance, those barricades you've set up could come in really helpful."

"We were thinking that. We've already got weapons and ammo laid out."

"On the subject, we should take a trip to the ship's armoury. These guys had some awesome handheld weapons. If any are still working we'll be able to waste the Orions easy."

"I love your optimism," said Lance.

"Let me show you the armoury and you'll see why I have it."

There were a lot of weapons in the destroyer's armoury, ranging from pistols to what looked like bazookas. Alex helped herself to a weapon that looked like a hollow tube, about half a meter long. She then spent close to an hour scavenging parts from other weapons and bits and pieces from around the ship to get it working. At one point it looked like she wouldn't be able to repair it, and when she finally did get it working her face lit up like a child's at Christmas.

"This," introduced Alex, "is a particle cannon."

She pointed it into a decayed crew cabin and pulled the trigger. A wide cone of bright blue light spat from the barrel and turned everything it touched into slag. Alex rested the weapon against her shoulder and grinned. "Cool, huh?"

After a short argument, it was decided that Drake should get the particle cannon, being a Starfleet-trained man who was used to handling exotic weaponry. Lance fancied the look of a very mean looking rifle in the armoury, but Alex didn't have the time to fix anything else; the Orions were getting closer.

"If they board, Sarn and the men are in the corridor," said Alex to Miranda and Susan. "They're our first line. I have to stay here to operate the ship's defences. If the Orions get past my friends and yours, I'll protect you as best I can. In case that's not enough, take this. It's a standard Federation phase pistol, set to kill. Just point it and pull the trigger. That's all there is to it."

Miranda took the weapon and held it tightly to her, scared but determined.

"_Out of curiosity, if the Orions reach us will you let me take over?"_

"_What's the point in keeping a secret that costs us our lives? Of course I will."_

"_Then why give her a weapon?"_

"_Because if they don't get here I won't have to tell her, will I? And it will seem a bit odd that I didn't give her anything to defend herself with."_

The Orion Hunters came out of warp in a line and advanced on the destroyer. They were needle-shaped ships, dull green, their tips glowing where their weapons were charged and ready to fire.

Alex shot first. The ancient warship opened up with its remaining broadside. The turrets were designed to intercept and shoot down incoming missiles. But the missiles they had been intended to destroy had been capable of taking out carrier-class ships; they were big, well protected missiles.

Much better protected than the Hunters. Caught completely by surprise, two ships were reduced to rubble by the opening salvo. The second wave of destructive golden light obliterate a third Hunter, but by now the others had begun evasive manoeuvres, and the damaged old turrets couldn't track them fast enough.

The fighter-drones, designed to slaughter top enemy aces, had much better luck. Two drones engaged the remaining Orion Hunters; one drone shot all three down.

"_That was easy,"_ said Kana, disappointed.

Miranda was shocked. "What…what happened to all of your dire predictions about them boarding us…fighting to the last?"

"Well…" Alex shrugged. "Always expect the worst. Then you can be pleasantly surprised when it doesn't happen." She grinned and clapped her hands together. "Right, that's that, then. All that's left to do is get you three back to the _Endeavour_. That's the easy bit."

The other woman shook her head miserably. "No. That's not it. There's still the bounty. They won't stop hunting us."

"Let me handle that."


	12. Chapter 10

_**Chapter Ten**_

"This is a hell of a ship you've got, Will. I mean, Captain."

"Will's fine, for the moment," grinned Captain Drake, inviting his guests to sit, pouring them each a glass of fine Scotch whisky. Miranda and Lance took the only chairs in his small cabin and gratefully took the drinks. Susan was off with Alex and Sarn, rushing excitedly around the starship that the adults had just finished touring.

Riker picked up on the captain's words and asked, "What do you mean 'for the moment'?"

Drake sipped his whisky. "You're in a bit of a situation. We escaped that group of Orions, but there might be others. If you leave this ship, we can't protect you. And we can't bring those responsible for this whole sordid ordeal to justice."

"You mean the people behind the…what was it? BIDP?"

Drake nodded, while Miranda shook her head. "You won't find them, Captain. They're a covert group. They'll have gone so deeply underground you'll never pick up their trail."

"My crew is capable of just about anything. You've seen that for yourself. And that's what I wanted to talk to you both about. Doctor Pauli, you're a therapist?"

"That's right, sir."

"I think the crew could do with having a counsellor aboard. Space is a big and lonely place; it's hard to keep morale on long voyages. Nerves get frayed, tempers fizzle away. And we've got a lot of first voyagers aboard, people who have never been out of their home systems before. As a front line starship, we're often called to go deeper into the unknown than anyone's gone before. People get homesick. And there are things out there that affect the mind. We've all heard about the _Ascendance_, I'm sure. Having someone aboard ship who knows how to deal with such disturbances, and who the crew can talk to if they have something they need to get off their chests, could be a great benefit."

"Yes, sir," said Miranda, seeing what Drake was doing. "I think it could."

"Then it's settled. We'll have to work out some of the details, of course. No starship has ever had a counsellor before – normally that's the chef's second job. We'll have to work out which department to assign you to, and we'll have to find you an office, but Commander Tholiar is ruthlessly efficient; she'll sort it all out."

"Thank you, Captain. But…Susan. Children aren't permitted aboard a starship."

"Normally that's perfectly true. But since Susan probably knows this ship better than I do by now, and can perform any of the functions of any of my crewmen, I think I can make an exception. I'll have to falsify her age on the ship's roster, and when we have an admiralty visitor or an inspection it would be best if she wasn't seen, but again, those are things we can work out."

"Thank you."

He turned to Riker and took another sip. "You lost your ship. By now, the Cartel will have laid claim to it and probably sold it on. Not a lot of people would sacrifice that much for a friend. The sort of people who would are the kind I want in my crew."

"I'm flattered, Will," said Lance, and he meant it, "but I'm not Starfleet, and I'm not a therapist or anything. I'm just a good pilot."

"That's what I was hoping for. Alex is always telling me that my 'Starfleet flyboys' couldn't pilot a ship if their lives depended on it. I don't think she would object to having you in her department. And I don't think you'd object much, either. Alex hasn't quite got around to reading the rule book yet, and I tend to give her a lot of leeway to do things her own way, as you've seen."

"Yeah," laughed Lance. "Yeah. I think I could work with her."

"It's not a demand, of course. You're both free to decline. If you do, I'll take you wherever you want to go."

They looked at each other, to check what the other was thinking. They smiled, and Lance spoke for them both when he said, "We want to stay here, on _Endeavour_."

Captain Drake was delighted. He shook them each by the hand, heartily. "In that case, I welcome you both aboard the _Starship Endeavour_ as members of her crew. And Mr Riker? Now you do have to call me captain."

He nodded. "Aye, Captain."


	13. Epilogue

STAR TREK: Endeavour NCC-194Kirk Johnston

_**Epilogue**_

Frav, the Orion representative, was enjoying a relaxing soak in one of the many bathing pools that were spread throughout his penthouse accommodation. A pair of Orion slave girls draped around his large frame, their hands working on the knots in his muscles. Tia lounged on the other side of the pool, two attendants, one male and one female, pampering to her whims. It had been a long day, a long week, and they had earned their relaxation. Although a mere mouthpiece for the Syndicate, he had been very busy. New contracts had been taken out all over the place, while at the same time there was the increasing tension with the upstart Cartel to contend with. He had been present at almost a dozen different meetings, carefully repeating the words his master had given him to speak.

Tia shifted in the water, her male servant's hands caressing her bare legs, the female attending to her flat stomach muscles. She batted them away, her brow furrowing. For a few moments more, she moved her arms and legs in small circles beneath the water, testing it. Her frown deepened. "Frav. Have you changed the temperature settings?"

"No. No, they're at the defaults."

"It is too warm in here."

Now that she mentioned it, he could feel that the water was warmer than usual. In fact, it was positively hot, and seemed to be getting warmer by the moment. Uncomfortably warm.

"Out!" Called Tia, rolling out of the bath and pulling her two attendees after her. With Frav things were acted out the other way around, the servants hauling him out of the water. They weren't quite fast enough to save him from the rapidly heating water, which by now had come on to boil and badly scorched his lower legs.

"A malfunction," cried Frav.

"It's no malfunction," said Tia assuredly and she gestured around the penthouse. Every pool and artificial stream was boiling, steam rising in great clouds; the plants were withering and dying even as they watched. Soon, the yellowed husks of vegetation burst into flame, black smoke merging in with the steam in the air.

"What is going on?"

Tia's beautiful green eyes narrowed darkly. She knew full well what was happening and reached for a towel to wrap around her naked person.

The tendrils of smoke began to twist together, forming first into the vague silhouette of a human form, and then refining more and more until a furious figure came striding out of the darkness, her blood red cloak flapping around her and a rage more powerful than the sun illuminating her red, red eyes.

Frav stepped into her path. "Who are you? How did you come to be here? I demand to know!"

She touched her hand against his chest and he became a pillar of ash, dispersed by the breeze now blowing around the penthouse. She stepped dispassionately through the remains of the puppet and stopped in front of Tia with her arms folded.

"I wish you hadn't done that. Good help is hard to find."

"Spare me your pithy problems, Tia, we are here to discuss an issue of mine."

"What is it that concerns you, Kana?"

"You put a bounty on two people, a woman and a child; human." She held out her hand and the smoke collected around it into the form of two faces. "Do you remember them?"

So many faces were put before her every day, so many targets and partners and contacts that she could barely keep them all straight at the best of times, let alone when an enraged Dark Soul was glaring at her in the most threatening manner. But she could recall the two people whom Kana was showing to her. Although she was head of the Orion Syndicate, controller of the most powerful criminal organisation in known space, she had something of a conscience and she had regretted putting the bounty on those two.

"I do."

"Their bounties are cancelled."

"Consider it done."

"And I want to know who it was who put the contract out in the first place."

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Mister Black had a small, nondescript apartment that he used whenever he was in San Francisco. It was not his permanent home; he had no such thing; his occupation would not permit him to. No house, no possessions, no family, no footsteps. If he was to die tomorrow, he would leave no trace that he had ever existed, save for an anomalous corpse, and his associates would take care of that.

Secrecy was the watchword of his existence.

So it quite surprised him to find that he had a visitor waiting for him in his bedroom. In the pitch darkness of his apartment, all he could see were a glowing pair of red eyes, staring straight at him. A voice spoke immediately upon his entering the room. "The enigmatic Mister Black. Oh, don't try to run, you fool. Did you honestly think I would come all this way and devote all this time to finding you, just to let you run out the door? Oh no, you don't get off that easily."

Somehow, the shadows were holding him, wrapping around his legs and pinning him more securely than any ropes could. He was helpless, and the figure was advancing on him. He could still see nothing but those hellish eyes, and he couldn't bear to look at them.

"You have endangered the lives of two of my friends and I will not let that pass. But before I send you into oblivion, I will know everything about you and who you work for."

He grit his teeth and braced himself for the torture. He had been trained to resist, right to the bitter end. She would get nothing from him.

"Right now, you're thinking there's no way that I can break you. You have been taught how to resist physical pain, no doubt. You know of all kinds of tortures and ways of resisting them. But I'm not going to hurt your body, Mister Black. That kind of torture is for amateurs. Why harm the body when you can go directly for the soul? Now, Mister Black, it's time for us to talk. Well, time for you to talk, time for me to listen. So, who are you? Who do you work for?"

_Endeavour NCC-194_

_To be continued in 'The Daedalus Incident'_

3


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